The Beginning of Days
by RoadrunnerDM
Summary: Pages from Lee Adama's private journal. Currently near the end of Flight of the Phoenix.
1. Day One

Setting: Immediately following the mini-series.  
Spoilers: mini-series + additional backstory provided throughout season 1 & 2

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Day one...I guess.

Seems useless to bother recording the calendar date here. After all, the starting date of the Colonial calendar that we've used for the last 2,000 years was set to commemorate the first landing on Caprica – the first colony of humankind to be settled once the exodus from Kobol began. Our calendar system has tracked the passage of time throughout the Colonial era, after the Kobolian era ended. Now, the Colonial era has also come to an end. The colonies are gone. So we are at the beginning of days once more. What name will our descendants give to this new era? I am assuming, of course, that there will be subsequent generations of humankind, who will continue to mark time long after I am gone. Considering our current circumstances, that may be a big assumption, but it's a leap of faith I have to make. I have to believe this is not the end.

I should be sleeping now. I haven't slept in... I'm really not sure how long it's been. I'm tired enough to sleep, but my mind is not in a state that will allow me to rest. I should still try, just lie down, close my eyes, even if I can't quite sleep. In truth, though, it's difficult to even just sit still right now. My nerves are shot. I keep jumping at every sound. And the images that fill my mind when I do close my eyes just make things worse. Maybe writing this out will help. I've always found keeping a journal to be nicely cathartic. It's a habit I picked up from my father a long time ago.

Which brings me right to where this whole nightmare started. I won't bother recording my entire contentious relationship with Dad now. I've done that in plenty of other journal entries before... though my previous journal is by now blown to dust. I am on board Galactica now. Yes indeed. The one place in all of creation that I hoped never to see, and now I must call it home. Lords Help Me. I have moved in with my father and his mistress; the Old Man and the Grand Ol' Girl. I first, reluctantly, set foot on these decks thinking that I only needed to endure this place for a few hours, and then I could get the frak out. I didn't come here by choice. The Old Girl was being officially decommissioned, and it was decided by someone in the fleet's public relations office that a family photo opportunity would be too good to pass up. The fleet does so love good publicity. So, as the son of the esteemed Commander William "Husker" Adama, I was ordered to attend the ceremony. It was not a request. It was an _order_. No way out of it.

My only hope was that the schedule of events would be so regimented that there would not be any time for family reunions beyond the required photo session. I didn't want a reunion at all. I certainly didn't want to be forced into one with cameras recording our every move and every word. As it turned out, things were worse than I feared they could be. The cameras snapped away while we faked our smiles, then they trotted off to the next item on their agenda, and Dad and I were left alone. At first, he practically ignored me, and wouldn't event look at me. Fine, as far as I was concerned. But when I was just centimeters from a clean getaway, he struck up a conversation after all. Small talk at first. Have some coffee. Congratulations on your promotion and sorry I missed it. Yeah right. But then, he _had_ to do it. He had to bring up Zak. And as usual, he wanted to have his say while completely ignoring mine. He wouldn't even face me. I ended up speaking to the back of his head and may as well have been speaking to the wall. The wall would hear me as effectively as he did. So naturally, I lost it... pulled out the big guns... and fired point-blank.

Kara was right. I haven't changed. I can hold in my temper through an awful lot, but when I blow... I go nuclear. Gods, I know I was cruel. I'm not proud of it. But frak I'm tired of talking to a wall! I tried my entire life to make him hear me. He _never_ has, but up until just 2 years ago I forgave him anyway. I just put up with it and forged ahead on my own in spite of him. Then Zak died, and I refused to accept my father's indifference any longer. He never listened to Zak either. If he had, he'd have known that Zak didn't belong in a cockpit... where he died. So, I gave up begging to be heard. I gave up speaking to him at all. There was no point in trying. But then the fleet intervened and forced us back together, where Dad proved that he'd still rather live under his own delusions of who his youngest son was rather than admit to the truth... and where I proved how much of an asshole I'm capable of being. I've been doing that a lot lately, come to think of it. I'm sure Gianne would agree... but I can't think about her now.

So, I walked away from a horrific encounter with my father, feeling pissed off and guilt-ridden at the same time, just in time to be granted the dubious honor of flying my father's antiquated Mark II viper in front of the crowd assembled in the new flight deck museum. Yes, it's true. I had to fly that fossil with my father's name plate beneath the cockpit. The Galactica's CAG called it an honor, but I didn't seem him interested in trading in his Mark VII for the opportunity to fly a piece of history. The old crate felt slow, sluggish, and about as agile as a lame hippo, but somehow I had to make it look nice and pretty for the cameras and the crowd. I did my job, but I couldn't wait to drop the museum piece back off and retrieve my own Mark VII, then get the heck back to Caprica. Unfortunately, there were political dignitaries in the crowd, so I was assigned the extra post-ceremony butt-kiss duty of "escorting" the political carrier back to Caprica... _in_ the frakking Mark II. Military escort. What a joke. My presence there in the Mark II was entirely for show. That old relic was nowhere near combat ready... and it proved it when all hell broke loose. One single missile detonated at battle range knocked out every flight system on board. The transport had to rescue me! Thank the Lords it was just the one missile and not a Cylon raider.

Yet, how was I to know that apparently my own Mark VII would have fared far worse against a Cylon raider than the old Mark II? For the next several hours on board the transport I heard reports from all over the fleet about devastating losses of even our most advanced and powerful warships. Entire squadrons of Mark VII's were being wiped out without firing a single shot. It made no sense. Stuck aboard the transport, there was nothing I could do but assist with the rescue operations initiated by our new President, Laura Roslin, while the reports of disaster poured in. That was how I heard about the Atlantia... and my old shipmates. In the cockpit of the newly renamed Colonial One, we received the news that I had been dreading: Admiral Nagala had led the Atlantia's battle group, comprised of more than 100 battlestars, into a major engagement with the Cylons near the orbit of Virgon. Only a few of the smaller vessels escaped to send out the word that the Atlantia was destroyed, and Admiral Nagala was dead.

All my old shipmates met the same fate as the admiral. Those brave and honorable souls, who became my family in the past two years since I lost Zak, are all gone now. They went down together... but without me. Reason tells me that my presence there wouldn't have made any difference. I would just have died with them, but a part of me wishes that I had. It's called Survivor's Guilt; a nice clinical term used by psychologists to simply tell a patient that they feel lousy about living when so many others are dead... as if the patient hadn't already figured that out... as if giving the guilt a clinical name makes it any less difficult to bear. My CAG and mentor, Ghost. My wingman, Tiny... all 215 pounds of him. Bear. Shrill. Smokey. Talon. Cyclone. Skipper. Lasher. Tipsy. Feline. Grunt... Lew always did hate that callsign but he was never able to shake it. Misty. Fiddler. Bullseye. Jigster... Damn it, I'm missing some, but my head can't keep it straight right now. And there are so many others beyond just my fellow pilots. The CIC crew. The deck crew. Medics, kitchen staff, weps team. I need to make out a list, record as many names as I can and write down anything I can remember about them. I may be the only person still alive who ever knew any of them.

Lords, what a thought that was. I had to put down this pen and just disintegrate into a puddle for a few minutes. I think I've got myself back together now, at least enough to form a coherent thought again.

Back to where I was, in the midst of the nightmare. With the admiral gone, command necessarily passed to the next surviving senior officer. As it turned out, that was my father. So far removed from the combat zone, the Galactica appeared to be the only capital ship in the fleet that had not yet been destroyed. Ironic. The oldest ship in the fleet, transformed into a museum, carrying no ammunition for her cannons, with a commander who already had one foot over the fence into retirement... is now the fleet's flagship. Yet, it was apparently that obsolescence that allowed the Galactica to survive. All the newer ships, including Mark VII vipers, used computer systems that the Cylons found a way to remotely compromise. All of our great technological advances since the last war became useless when the Cylons simply turned everything off and fired away at will. But the Galactica's old-fashioned computers were not compromised, and she alone remained functional.

For years I've thought my father was stuck in the past... refusing to allow many new technologies to be installed on the Galactica... unable to leave the old war behind and move into the reality of the present. Well, hell he _was_ always stuck in the past and the fact is that his "backward" way of thinking has caused him to be passed over for promotion many times over the years. Yet, now it turns out that his old-fashioned thinking may have given humanity a future.

Dad wasted no time in taking command of the fleet after news of the Admiral's defeat reached us. He immediately sent word to all colonial ships to rendezvous with the Galactica at the Ragnar Anchorage. But I promptly received orders from a higher power, President Roslin. Under her orders, I sent word to Dad to have him rendezvous with us and assist Colonial One with rescue operations. Needless to say, he didn't react supportively to his new orders, or to the new President, and for the second time that day we argued. I can understand his frustrated reaction to having a civilian intervene in the midst of combat, but this was no ordinary civilian. She's the President, lawfully sworn into office according to the Articles of Colonization. He may be the acting fleet admiral, but she still outranks him. What else could I do, but refuse his orders in favor of hers, however furious that might make him?

It's an odd thing to say, but luckily the Cylons attacked Colonial One before this newest argument with Dad could take as nasty a turn as our previous encounter had. With a trick dug up from my days at War College, we eluded the Cylons and resumed our search for surviving civilian ships, gathering everyone we could find together into a kind of ragtag fleet. By the end of the day we had assembled 60 civilian ships in total, plus a scattering of vipers that had managed to escape from earlier engagements with the Cylons. It took hours, and the valuable assistance of a fugitive raptor from Galactica's own decimated squadron, to round everyone up.

We made no additional attempts to communicate with Galactica during that time, since it was possible that our earlier long-range contact might have been the means by which the Cylons found us before. As a precaution we maintained communication silence on all long-range channels. But the Cylons still found us. We had nearly 20 ships in our convoy lacking FTL capability. Fighting back would have been futile. The only thing we could do was run. As a warrior, it galls me to say that. How often do we declare amongst ourselves that we don't leave our people behind? It's drilled into our heads in basic training. We promise it to one another. But Lords forgive me, I knew by then that we were past the point where winning was a consideration and survival was the only goal remaining to us. And the only way to ensure survival was to leave the slower ships behind. The choice was ultimately not mine to make. That fell to President Roslin, but I was the one who pressed for that course of action. Others argued against leaving so many people, thousands, to die, but I knew in my gut those people could not be saved. Trying to save the few would have cost the lives of all. The President agreed with me. Still... though technically the responsibility was hers... I know I will carry the guilt of that action for the rest of my life.

As we counted down to the FTL jump, and I heard the pleas from the ships we were abandoning... pleas that I will hear in my nightmares for as long as I live... the Cylons attacked. I could try to ease my conscience by saying that the timing of the attack confirmed that my recommendation to jump immediately was the right one. But I can never forget that just as the surviving fleet reached "safety" above Ragnar, thousands of abandoned people were dying who had only a short while earlier entrusted their safety to my hands.

Back again. Once more I had to put the pen down and take a few minutes to pull myself back together. This is harder than I expected. But I suppose it's better for me to fall to pieces now, in private, than to have a meltdown in front of the crew later.

At Ragnar, we rendezvoused with Galactica and my service aboard Colonial One ended. I'd already learned from Boomer what happened to Capt. Spencer and the rest of Galactica's squadron, but I had no idea that the other museum display pieces had been also been put into service in the Galactica's defense. The Old Girl had even taken a hit on her one usable flight pod from a small payload nuke, and 85 members of the deck crew had perished. The Galactica hadn't quite been entirely outside the combat zone after all. So, I suddenly found myself in much the same position as my father... promoted to command only because I had survived where others had not. I am now CAG for the Galactica. Senior pilot. I didn't really have time to think about it right then. If I did, I probably would have found a dark corner to hide in for at least an hour or two... kind of like I'm doing now.

I used to want this, once upon a time. Well... I used to want to be a CAG anyway... but never like this. Way back when I first earned my wings, my ambition was to one day command my own squadron, though that all changed after Zak died. Funny how things turn out. Now I do command my own squadron... and I wish I didn't.

I've written long and many times about this in my journal recently. I don't really want to do it again, but my old journal is back home... lost now... along with everything and everyone else. And... frak I don't want this! I was so close. Just another few weeks... Irony just keeps rearing its head. Dad was on the verge of turning civilian, in retirement, but the Cylons prevented that. No one else alive knows this... I only spoke of it with Mom and Gianne... and I may _never_ be able to tell anyone else now... but _I too_ was on the verge of ending my military career. The Cylons have prevented me from leaving too. Just one more thing my father and I have turned out to have in common.

I love to fly and I've done very well at it. But after Zak died I gradually came to accept the fact that I made the same mistake my brother did. I joined the military for the wrong reasons. I did it because I knew that was what my father expected of me, and I'd never allowed myself to consider doing anything else with my life. As much as I loved my time in a viper, and the people that I served with, I had to finally admit that I was staying in the military because I was afraid to leave... because my father had so brainwashed me from the day I was born into ignoring any other options. I decided I had to leave, or I'd never respect myself again. Whatever I did with my life, the choice had to be one that I was sure I wanted... not a bowing to what my father was willing to accept.

But the Cylons have changed all that. It's not about what I want anymore. There are greater considerations at stake than whether or not I might be happier flying a civilian commuter shuttle, or even running a fish and tackle shop in the mountains. Those options are gone. _All_ options are gone. Only duty is left now. Whether I want it or not, I am CAG. The simple fact is that my life no longer belongs to me. It belongs to the people that I've sworn to protect. Maybe someday things will change again. Hopefully. Until then, my wings will stay in place and I will command this squadron of decrepit, obsolete vipers from this ancient, last-remaining battlestar, to the very best of my ability and to my final breath, if necessary... all while under my father's direct command.

Under my father's command.

What's the old saying? "There is nothing so like a god in corporeal form than a commander on his battlestar." Well, I am now a subject in my father's dominion. I don't know whether to be comforted or frightened by that fact. Earlier, I would have been sure that fright was the appropriate response, but now...? He's always been SO stoic. Unshakable. But there is something undeniably different about him now. Perhaps it's simply that he's as shell-shocked as the rest of us. Perhaps he's just as terrified inside as I am about being forced to step into command under the most dire of circumstances. Whatever the reason, he surprised the heck out of me today.

When I returned from Colonial One, I was certain that he would nail my ass to the wall for refusing his earlier orders. But when I met up with him again in his quarters, there were no reprimands. I couldn't help tearing up when I saw the picture on his desk. It's an old picture of me and Zak with Mom. I don't even remember when it was taken, but I couldn't have been more than 10. And when I saw Mom's face... It didn't even occur to me until then that she is really dead. Everyone back home is dead. Dad always hated it when Zak or I cried as children. He just couldn't stand it. But today he didn't disapprove or lecture... either about the tears, or my earlier insubordination. He just told me he was sorry, about Mom I assume. Despite the failure of their marriage, I know they loved each other, so I guess he couldn't fault me for grieving her. Yet, such emotional displays and signs of weakness have never been acceptable to him before. I felt like I needed to break down, if only for a few minutes, but I couldn't do it in front of him. If he wasn't going to take the opportunity to yell at me, then I figured I'd best leave while I still had some measure of control. But he stopped me from leaving... and hugged me. I swear I can't remember the last time he did that. I must have still been a very small child, if he ever did it at all. I still can't quite believe it. I know this nightmare hasn't been mine alone to suffer. Dad has seen as much of this horror as I have. More even. I heard from a few members of Galactica's crew that I was believed to be dead after Colonial One disappeared from the scopes. I suppose I have to conclude that Dad was pleased to find me still alive and expressed that to me the only way he could.

Here I go, being an ass again. For all of our problems, I know in my heart that my father has always loved me, in his own way. Maybe he just couldn't tell me in words how he felt to have me back any more than I could tell him in words how I felt to lose Mom and Gianne. Obviously we still don't know how to communicate very well, but I feel like we've at least both acknowledged that we need to start trying. I can't shut him out of my life anymore, and he can't ignore me anymore. We both have to find a way to make this work. And there is some undeniable comfort in knowing that I haven't lost my _entire_ family. So many others can't say the same. I may be a stranger to the rest of the occupants under this roof, but this is my father's house.

Of course that could complicate things in other ways. To the crew, I'm a stranger. Yet, I've been placed in a high-profile command position. Fleet regulations would ordinarily not allow a father and son to serve together if one would be placed in command authority over the other. But there's nowhere else for me to go now, so everyone knows there is no choice in the matter. Still, there will be those who will be slow to fully accept my place here, because of my parentage. They won't see me as just "the stranger taking over as CAG". I'll be "the stranger-taking-over-as-CAG-who-is-also-the-commander's-kid". A double barrier to have deal with in my new squadron. They don't know me and I don't know them. Yet, I'm supposed to lead them.

Actually, I've already had my baptism by fire, so to speak. I led the squadron through a brief holding action that allowed the civilian fleet to jump to safety away from Ragnar. It was so close on the heels of the rest of this ongoing tragedy that no one really had time to think about who was who, what was next, or what any of this would mean in the long run. Everyone, including me, just jumped in and did what we had to do at that moment in time. There would be time for thought later, which I guess is now. We've made our escape... at least I pray we have. Now is when it all starts to sink in. Now is when we all start to get scared... angry... mournful...

Dad recognized the need for all of us to formally mourn those we've lost. He ordered a memorial service in the unused hanger deck of the starboard flight pod. We assembled there in ranks. The bodies of the crewmembers lost earlier in the day were laid out before us as representatives of the billions from all 12 worlds who died. We couldn't bury our loved ones back home, but we all needed some form of official commemoration of what was lost. I stood in the front row, beside my father, looking over the rows and rows of flag-draped bodies. After the first few words by Priest Elosha, I didn't even hear her prayers. I just saw in my mind the faces of my friends... my mother... my fiancée... my old schoolmates... and Zak too, though I buried him two years ago. I stood there in the company of hundreds... feeling completely alone.

Then Dad took his turn to speak. I'm not sure what to say about that here. He was trying to be inspirational and give us hope. But I don't know. He promised that he has a refuge in mind, and that we aren't just wandering aimlessly through uncharted space. He said he knows how to find the legendary 13th colony, Earth. But I don't quite believe him. I have the suspicion he was fibbing to us, just to keep us all from losing hope and prevent the fleet from falling into total chaos. If that's the case, I can't fault him for trying. I think everyone else bought it though. The cheers he inspired at the end of his speech would certainly support that conclusion. But I couldn't join them. People were crying with relief, smiling and hugging each other, but I just stood apart from them, alone.

That's essentially how I feel right now. Alone. I was only supposed to be here for a few hours, then leave. I was supposed to return to Caprica, and set things right with Gianne. I was supposed to start my new life with her... and without the military. I'm not supposed to still be here, in this place, wearing this uniform. I don't know this place. I don't know these people. There is no one here I can talk to.

Yes, I still have my father... who has never really known me and who I don't know how to talk to. I tried, after the memorial service. There were so many things I wanted to try to say to him... even to apologize... but he declined to let me. Some other time, Son. What else is new? He still doesn't really want to listen to me.

And there's Kara. She saved my life in our escape from Ragnar today. We were friends back when she was seeing Zak, but we lost touch after Zak died. Now she seems more inclined to listen to my father than to me. She even threatened to hit me today rather than listen to my side of the story. And then there's the bombshell she dropped. Confessing her sins, she said. Zak never earned his wings. Kara lied. She's been lying all this time. Zak failed his basic flight course, but she passed him anyway. I always knew Zak wasn't cut out to be a pilot but the fact that he had his wings was the source of Dad's clinging delusion. Now I KNOW those wings weren't an odd stroke of luck in his final flight test. They were an outright lie. It wasn't Dad alone who pushed Zak into a cockpit where he didn't belong. Kara did it too. At least she recognizes her mistake, and regrets it, which is something Dad has never done. But how can I trust her again? Zak was going to marry her, and she couldn't be honest with him, even when her lie put his life in danger. Then she deceived us all for two years, only finally admitting to it because it was The End of the World. Is that what it takes to make an honest woman out of her? I owe her my life... but how can I trust her?

This isn't the first time I've stepped into a new post and a new job. There's always an awkward period where you get to know your shipmates, and they get to know you. In that respect, I've been through this before and I'll get through it now. But I've always had my old friends and family to lean on, while I'm trying to get my bearings. I don't have anyone now. Not really. What I wouldn't give to have just one familiar face that I know I can trust and who will listen to me. Lords, I don't know how I'm going to get through this on my own.

Did it again. Fell apart. Frak, I still feel like I could crumble again at any second, so this may be about as much as I can manage to record for now. After Zak died, I remember asking Mom how she was getting along. "One breath at a time," she told me. I guess that's my goal for now.

One breath at a time.


	2. Numbers

Setting: Shortly following the events in "33".  
Spoilers: Up through episode 1.01.

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1,345. Hey, it's just a number.  
So is 33.  
240.  
6.

33 – the number of minutes it took for the Cylons to find us after every jump.  
240 – the number of jumps it took us to finally evade Cylon pursuit.  
6 – the number of days I've gone without sleep now.

That's a new record for me... one I hope I never have to break again. Even during Hell Week in Basic Training I only had to go for 5 days... and they gave us 1-hour sleep periods every 12 hours after day 3, with stims starting on day 4. The drill sergeants told us back then that without the breaks and the stims, we'd all be going insane by the end of the week. Ah yes, the magical stims. I'm loaded with them now. I hate how those damn pills make me feel, but I know I would have crashed to the floor or had a full-on meltdown hours ago without them. As it is, my hands are unsteady, and it's hard to write. My head's a little fuzzy too and for the last hour I've occasionally had the sensation that something was crawling over my skin. But now that I actually have the time to sleep, the fraking pills won't let me. I probably have at least another hour before I'll be able to close my eyes.

Kara is still jacked up too. She's gone down to the gym to punish one of the punching bags and hopefully work the drugs out of her system. I was inclined at first to join her, but the look on her face told me that I wasn't welcome. I'm not surprised. She didn't want to pull the trigger. "No fraking way," she told me. I fired first. I knew she would follow me in spite of her protests, but I almost hoped she wouldn't. She did. I don't know now if she'll ever forgive me for it. I'm not sure I want her to.

1,345 – No, this isn't just a number. These were people... one-thousand three-hundred and forty-five human souls that I may have slaughtered today. The decision was the President's. My father gave the order. But I led the mission, and I pulled the trigger. The fatal action was mine. I know, I know... there was at least one Cylon on board the Olympic Carrier... and the ship was carrying nukes... and it was on a direct collision course for Galactica. If the nukes were high-payload they could have wiped out any other civilian ships that had not yet made jump #240. Many more lives were at stake than 1,345. But Frak It! When can I stop playing this damn numbers game? How many times am I going to have to justify to myself sacrificing thousands to save tens of thousands? I've done it twice now, in less than a week! Lords of Kobol... don't ever make me do this again!

I can even still see the fraking light... the flash of the exploding ship. The fire and debris. I saw no sign of life through the carrier's windows as I flew past it that last time, so I don't know whether anyone was still onboard. But I can practically hear, even now, the screams of the people dying inside. I know that's impossible. Is it the stims fraking with my brain? Am I starting to hallucinate after 6 days without sleep? Or am I cursed for what I've done?

Frak it, I can't sit still here any longer. I'll go nuts if I just sit here thinking about it. Maybe I'll go let Kara use me as a punching bag. It might make us both feel better.

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Wow, was I losing it. Looking back at the page above, I can see that I was a lot closer to a meltdown last night than I'd thought at the time. I've had about six hours of sleep since then. I feel like I could have slept another 20, but duty calls. We're all still tired. It'll be days before we're all physically recovered. But it is amazing what even a few hours of sleep can do for your sanity. Although, I did have one _flashback_ this morning... I guess that's what it was... right after I woke up at reveille. I saw the Olympic Carrier exploding again as though I was right back in the cockpit of my viper with my finger on the trigger. I think I just hadn't quite woken up yet, and was still stuck in a dream somehow. I'm sure it won't happen again.

I must thank Kara for not killing me last night. We were both really on the edge of insanity when I found her in the gym, trying to work off the stims. If my head had been on straight, I would have just left her alone. If her head had been on straight, she wouldn't have missed when she took a swing at me. Instead, we both degenerated into a senseless shouting match. I don't even remember what the point of the argument was now. I think she insulted my leadership, again. I think I accused her of lacking discipline. And it went downhill from there. Before it was over, she was insulting the name I gave my dog when I was 12 and I was making fun of her shoe size. Then we were both on the floor laughing hysterically. It was very fortunate that no one else witnessed our little show of lunacy, or we'd both be in padded cells right now. At least I know she doesn't hate me for what happened yesterday. Of all the crazy accusations she threw at me, none of them touched on the destruction of the Olympic Carrier. Neither of us is happy about what we had to do, but we both know we have to accept the tragic nature of war if we are going to live our lives as warriors. And Kara is a damn fine warrior... even if she is lacking discipline. ;-)

I have a lot of thanks to extend today, to all my pilots. They've all given 150 over the past several days, and not one of them succumbed to a nervous collapse. I know I'll need to keep an eye on them for a long while yet. Recovery is going to be a slow process and people are going to be at continual risk. I may not be able to save all of them from Cylons, but I'll be damned if I lose any of my pilots to suicide! Kara may make fun of me for telling my squadron to be careful, but I refuse to stop caring about their survival. There are too few of us left. Every life is priceless. Every person counts. That's the only numbers game that I'm willing to go on playing.


	3. Day 9

Setting: Shortly following the events in "Water".  
Spoilers: Up through episode 1.02.

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Day 9.

It's been four days since I destroyed the Olympic Carrier and potentially 1,345 people along with it. I can't stop thinking about it, and the flashbacks are getting worse. At first, it only happened right after I'd wake up, as though it was simply a lingering dream. But the last few times it's hit me while I was wide awake, for no discernable reason. Fortunately, the episodes have been very brief, lasting only a few seconds, and no one else has noticed. If anyone knew, I'd probably be pulled from flight status and forced to undergo a psych evaluation. Hell, maybe I should be, but... damn it, it's going to be hard enough finding acceptance with this crew as it is. Being both the new guy and the commander's kid, I'm already doubly-damned. If it got around that the new CAG is going schizo after only 9 days in command, I'd never earn their respect. I just have to hope that time and fortitude will solve the problem.

Speaking of fortitude... I tried to talk to my father about it. The order to destroy the ship came from him, so I thought perhaps he might understand. Wrong! To paraphrase his response, "Suck it up Kid. Be a man and get over it." All right, maybe Dad wasn't quite _that_ blunt, but the meaning was essentially the same. I thought at first that he might be right. It would certainly make life easier these days if I was more thick-skinned, like he is. Sometimes I think he's downright bullet-proof. But I'd only be fooling myself to pretend that I'm the same, and I don't believe any more that his reaction is necessarily the right one.

President Roslin actually approached me on the subject. It turns out her reaction is much more akin to my own. She has doubts, regrets, and even carries a piece of paper in her pocket bearing the name of the Olympic Carrier. She _wants_ to always be reminded of what happened. I think I'm less inclined than she is to believe it might have been a mistake to destroy the ship, but I think we both agree that it _would_ be a mistake to just shrug it off. Those thousands who died deserve better than to simply be forgotten.

It's strange. I barely know Laura Roslin, yet I must admit that it's easier talking with her than with my own father. She actually listens instead of lectures, and I believe she has a genuine interest in hearing what I have to say. In the short time that I've known her, I've grown to respect and admire her a great deal. Her situation, in a way, mirrors my own, though the weight of my burden pales in comparison to hers. Out of sheer necessity, we've both ended up stepping into positions of leadership that neither of us were prepared for or sought after. Perhaps she recognizes the similarities of our situations and sees a kind of kindred spirit in me too. Perhaps that was why she asked for my help. It's imperative that she succeed in her new role as the President. The people desperately need a sense of stability and strong leadership in the government, and I believe that with a little help she can deliver that. That's why I agreed to act as her advisor on the military. She's smart enough to know that there's a lot she doesn't know, particularly with regard to military procedures and protocols... as well as, I believe, how to deal with my father... though I can hardly consider myself to be the foremost authority on that.

When I broached the subject with Dad concerning my new position as advisor to the President... let's just say he didn't respond well. I tried to make it very clear to him that my duties to the President were primarily informational and had nothing to do with actual military decisions or tactics. Command of the military was still unquestioningly, completely under his authority. I told him that I'm simply "educating the teacher." I thought for certain he would understand that, even welcome it, as it would potentially ease the lines of communication between them. He responded as though I'd insulted him somehow. He was quiet. There was no ranting or yelling, but he certainly gave me _The Look_. That look on his face used to send Zak and me running for our rooms when I was kid. I knew from the start that he would have some reservations about all this, but not to this degree. On the one hand, he makes this grand gesture of organizing a formal, military ceremony to welcome the President onboard Galactica, all for the purpose of helping her to feel more "Presidential." But when I agree to do my part in helping her to settle in, he looks at me like I've just betrayed him. I don't get it. I would almost start to suspect that he wanted to keep President Roslin to himself.

Or does he really believe that I can't fulfill my military duties if my loyalties are _divided_? I affirmed to him that I still recognize my job as CAG to be my primary responsibility and vowed that my position as advisor to the president won't interfere with that. He didn't appear to be convinced. He actually asked me, "Do you think you can serve two masters?" _Masters?_ I didn't think I even had _one_. In response though, I just told him, "I think I can handle both jobs." He just gave me _The Look_ again, and said, "We'll see." That you will Old Man!

Given recent events, however, the unpleasant prospect of playing referee between the Commander and the President should be the least of my worries. The suspicious "failure" of Galactica's portside water tanks has left the fleet in a state of emergency, with riots breaking out on those ships that aren't equipped for long-term water reclamation. Fortunately, Boomer and Crashdown have already located a new source of water on a moon within short-jump range. Chief Tyrol is leading the acquisition effort, but it will be several days at best before the tanks are repaired and our water stores are replenished. Until the water distribution to the fleet resumes, panic amongst the civilian population will continue.

I can't blame the civilians for being afraid. Though I may be inclined at times to grumble about the constant demands of my hectic schedule, I also can't deny that I'm glad to be kept busy. If I had to sit idly by, with no means to contribute and no control over my state in life, I might be raising holy hell by now too, out of sheer frustration. President Roslin has requested that military troops be sent to maintain order in some of the more troublesome spots in the fleet. I'm not comfortable with this situation, but who else can she turn to? There hasn't yet been time to organize and staff a civilian police force. Hopefully this state of partial martial-law will be brief... and it won't come back to bite us on the ass.

Worst of all, regardless of when the water crisis is resolved, the critical issue behind it still needs to be resolved. _Who was responsible?_ That little bombshell that the Commander dropped... hold on. I have to be careful here. As much as I'd love to examine all the implications on this matter, I can't do it here. That information remains classified, and this journal hardly qualifies as controlled media. The bottom line for me is that I now have another reason to keep watch over my pilots, beyond simply watching for warning signs of depression and self-destructive behavior. I'm sure that all division leaders would say the same, but I can't believe that any of my pilots will ultimately be implicated. I've flown with them all, and seen each and every one of them put their lives at risk to defend the fleet. In spite of that however, I still get a cold feeling in my gut that when the truth of this incident is revealed, it will be a shock to us all, and none of us will see it coming.


	4. Day 12

Setting: Shortly following the events in "Bastille Day".  
Spoilers: Up through episode 1.03.

-------------------------------------

Day 12

I met Tom Zarek today. In many ways, he's very much like I imagined him to be when I read his book, "Voices from the Other Side." I'd heard Zarek's name a few times while I was growing up - an occasional mention on the evening news that I never paid much attention to. I was still just a kid and not much interested in world events when he was convicted and sentenced to prison for his crimes. Sports and comic books were still more my speed. After his conviction, little was mentioned of him outside of Sagitarron. To most Capricans he dropped out of sight altogether and was mostly forgotten.

Then in my criminal psychology class at college he became the point of discussion for a few days. The focus of the discussion was what makes a man step over the edge from being the people's champion to becoming a terrorist who kills with no regard for the innocent lives that he destroys. One of my classmates mentioned to the professor that he had heard that Tom Zarek had written a book during his incarceration and expressed an interest in reading it – for clinical purposes, of course. The professor was quite critical of that suggestion and made it clear to all of us that Tom Zarek's book was nothing more than anarchistic propaganda, and it was banned from the campus. Anyone found reading that book could land in a heap of trouble. Naturally I was intrigued and found a copy of the book at an independent bookseller during my next weekend at home. I remember the look on the bookseller's face, seeing me in full ROTC uniform, asking about a book infamous for its passionately critical views of the Colonial government. I think that he half-expected to be arrested in a sting operation if he sold me the book, but while the book was banned from all government facilities and college campuses, private citizens could not be punished for exercising their right of free speech... except on Sagitarron.

I had to be careful about when and where I read it... which I must admit was part of the fun of it... but I found Zarek's book to be very thought-provoking. I had never given much thought before to the differences in regional policies from colony to colony. Caprica had always prided itself on being an all-inclusive society where all citizens are treated equally, but we also were guilty of not giving much consideration to whether or not our brothers and sisters on other colonies shared the same freedoms. There was a pervasive apathy about it that just encouraged people to look the other way. If the Sagitarrons weren't happy, nothing was stopping them from going elsewhere, so why should Capricans worry about it? Until I read Zarek's book, I didn't much worry about it either.

Things have changed greatly over the last 20 years and many of the exclusionary laws, which oppressed some citizens of Sagitarron, have been abolished. Even so, I can't fault Sagitarrons, Zarek included, for their lingering anger. Zarek defined his life by speaking out against the injustices his people suffered, and for that I could not help but admire his courage and principled fortitude. His motives were justified, though ultimately his means were not. Perhaps it was desperation that drove him to cross the line, but when innocent lives become inconsequential you can no longer claim to be championing anyone's cause but your own notoriety. You can not fight for "freedom" without respect for the value of human life.

So, it was with greatly mixed emotions that I sat down, face to face, to speak with Tom Zarek this morning on the prison transport, _Astral Queen_. I was very nervous, though I think I managed to hide it pretty well. He started off playing the submissive, well-trained prisoner routine, which I didn't buy for a minute. He was trying to feel me out, get inside my head and see where I was coming from. It was obvious to me that he had all other prisoners beguiled, and when I sat down with him and met him eye-to-eye, I could see why. There is a charisma surrounding him that makes him a natural leader. He was eloquent, well-spoken, and has a way of commanding your attention without words. He is not physically imposing, but there is something undeniably powerful about him. I _knew_ he was the key to obtaining the cooperation of the other prisoners in the water acquisition effort that the fleet so desperately needs. The others would follow his lead, whichever way he chose to go. He proved me right, but not in the way I expected. I thought I would either achieve his cooperation, or just be told to frak off. I never expected to be taken hostage.

What Zarek did next actually surprised me more than the armed takeover of the _Astral Queen_. When the other prisoners had me pinned down and were pummeling me senseless, I thought I was dead. (Hey, I did take out 5 of them before their numbers overwhelmed me.) But instead of killing me, or locking me into a cell, Zarek had me brought to the control room so that he could talk to me. He didn't even bother to tie me up or to keep a gun on me. I guess there wasn't much point in that. I could have easily taken him out with my bare hands, but then what? With 1,500 armed and pissed off felons outside the control room door, wasting Zarek would have been tantamount to suicide, and I wasn't the only hostage. Billy Keikeya, PO Dualla, and Crewman Specialist Cally would all have been killed too. So it all came right back to Zarek and I finding a meeting of the minds. But instead of _me_ trying to persuade _him_ to cooperate on behalf of the fleet, _he_ seemed to want to persuade _me_ to understand his actions. I'm still not sure why he bothered. He had a plan that really didn't require my cooperation. He wanted to bring down the government, now run by President Roslin and my father. He thought he could achieve that by forcing Galactica's marines into an assault that would end in a total massacre of everyone on board the _Astral Queen_. It was insane. But why did he want me to understand what he was doing?

It's clear to me that Zarek wanted to die. The Holocaust has traumatized us all, and the prisoners are no different in that regard. Zarek spent his life's energy striving for freedom for his people only to see his world... and all hope... obliterated by the Cylons while he sat helplessly behind bars. But after being a champion in his own mind for _so_ long, Zarek couldn't just commit simple suicide by hanging or some other mundane means. He couldn't conceive of his death serving no purpose. So he turned his desperate venom against Laura Roslin. She's the President. It doesn't matter that he has no quarrel with her, or that she has never done anything to warrant his enmity. Hell, she hasn't even been in office for two weeks yet! But if Tom Zarek goes down, he must go down fighting the government, _whatever_ form that may take.

So, he contrived his hate against Laura Roslin, little knowing that he already owed her his life. Before the fleet escaped from the Colonies, the _Queen's_ pilot was inclined to space all the prisoners rather than expend precious resources sustaining 1,500 dangerous criminals. President Roslin prevented that from happening, demanding constant reports on the fair-treatment of the prisoners. It was also because of her that the prisoners were not _forced_ (as my father wanted) to participate in the work crews obtaining the water from the ice moon. She demanded that their efforts should be completely voluntary and that they receive compensation in the way of freedom points for their participation. I doubt it would have made any difference to Zarek if he'd known that the President was in fact his benefactor, not his oppressor. The man had a death wish, and logic and reason were not factors in his actions. With citizens panicking over the shortage of water throughout the fleet, they may have _welcomed_ the news that they wouldn't have to share precious rations with murders and rapists. Just as revealing was the fact that he was completely willing to take all 1,500 of his followers down with him. Those other prisoners certainly had no idea that Zarek intended to get them all killed. They trusted him. Hell, they damn near worship him. And a bloodbath was how he intended to reward them for their loyalty.

But why did he want me to know what he was attempting to do? Why did he want me to understand? Why was he trying to understand me?

I can only assume that in some way he wanted another way out. He couldn't go on living under the current conditions aboard the _Astral Queen_, but he also knew that he was taking an unjustifiable and desperate turn... and wanted someone to give him an alternative. When he learned that I had read his book in spite of the fact it was forbidden, and told him that I respected him for his principles, he thought I might be able to give him some means of hope. And when I gave him a choice, he did take it... though in fact I offered him very little.

I wonder if it has dawned on him yet that our bargain was not much of a compromise at all. Zarek and the other prisoners are now in control of the _Astral Queen_, but aside from their "freedom" to move about the ship, they still have the very same living arrangements available to them that they did before. They can't leave the ship. They are dependent on the fleet for food and fuel, so they can't go off on their own. They will be doing all the hard labor of acquiring the water from the moon. And even my "agreement" to hold elections within a year was nothing more than an enforcement of President Roslin's existing legal term of office. The only thing that I truly gave Tom Zarek was hope. Perhaps that was all he really wanted.

But what happens next? I have no doubt that he will be working with his men to earn his freedom points, and since he is already near the end of his sentenced prison term, he may be released into the fleet very soon. But is he ready to rejoin society? Zarek has fallen very far. His recognition for the value of human life is questionable at best. He was willing to stand by and watch while an innocent girl was raped and murdered, even claiming that her brutal treatment was fair retribution. "You reap what you sow," he told me. How could anyone of decent conscience have said that? I believe he had it in him once to be an extraordinary person. A true champion. But who... or what... is he _now_? Can a man really fall _so_ far and ever find his way back?


	5. Day 13

Setting: One day after the events in "Bastille Day".  
Spoilers: Up through episode 1.03.

--------------------------------------

Day 13

Major Cottle declined to clear me for flight status this morning, so I'm stuck on light duty for a couple more days, barring emergencies of course. He's concerned that I might have a minor concussion after the beating I took yesterday on the _Astral Queen_. I told him that I haven't experienced any dizziness or nausea, but unfortunately Kara caught me having another flashback and jumped to the wrong conclusion before ratting me out to the doctor. I guess I could have told them both the truth, but I'd rather let people think that I'm just recovering from a kick to the head instead of losing my sanity. Actually, the flashbacks have been getting more rare over the last couple days and aren't nearly as intense as they used to be. I certainly haven't forgotten the Olympic Carrier. I never will, but at least remembering doesn't knock the breath out of me anymore. Another few days and I think I'll be fine. Kara just has an uncanny sense of timing. Either that or my luck just sucks.

So, instead of flying, it's paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. And more paperwork. I never would have guessed that the job of CAG involved so much fraking paperwork. Managing people includes managing _files_ about people, and unfortunately Capt. "Ripper" Spencer had a tendency to fall behind on his documentation. So, guess who gets to play catch up? I suppose I should be grateful to get a few mandatory days out of the cockpit. It gives me the opportunity to get everything organized and up-to-date. And I must admit, I am pretty damn sore today. I think even some of my bruises have bruises.

On the subject of being sore...

Dad's still giving me the cold shoulder today. He's acting like I insulted him by resolving the crisis on the _Astral Queen_ without resorting to a bloodbath. Maybe Tom Zarek was looking forward to getting himself killed, but _I_ wasn't. If Zarek had taken that sniper's bullet, the other hostages and I would have been the next to die. The prisoners had us surrounded and would have gunned us all down, point-blank, long before the marines could take control of the ship. Dad's master plan would have been a disaster... and he would still have needed to find 1000 men for the work detail on the ice moon. Instead, we not only avoided a senseless massacre, but we also have the labor needed to acquire the water for the fleet. The labor detail is exactly what Dad wanted from the prisoners in the first place. So why the heck does he have his nose out of joint now, after being given what he wanted? Does he feel _threatened_ by anyone who doesn't instinctively cower to his authority... like Tom Zarek? Like President Roslin?

Like me?

Is it possible that _Zeus_ simply isn't accustomed to being defied by _anyone_? Maybe he wants me to bow at his feet and proclaim, "By your command!" He certainly made it clear that he expects me to give him my full, undivided, unquestioned loyalty... and offer none to President Roslin. It's not like I've ever gone crawling to her feet either! In fact, they at first acted like they _both_ wanted to disown me last night.

"He's your son."  
"He's your advisor."

Yeah, whatever. Neither of them came up with a better solution to the crisis. So, get over it Old Man. At least the President already has. She isn't worried about my loyalties. So, why is he?

I know I'll just get more and more riled about Dad if I keep harping on about this. I'll never change him. So be it. Crisis resolved. Move on.

Something else happened last night too... and I've really debated whether I should make any mention of it here. President Roslin has entrusted me with a sensitive, personal issue and I promised her to keep it in confidence. I'm not really worried that any of my pilots will snake this journal and read it behind my back. I trust them... except maybe Kara. ;) Still, I feel the need to be very careful. When I think about what the President told me, it scares the heck out of me. I wish I could have said something to her last night... something profound and comforting... but I think she really just wanted me to listen. I'm not sure why she chose to tell me, except that maybe she _needs_ someone else to know, so that she doesn't have to deal with it all alone. She trusts me. I won't betray that trust, and I'll do everything I can to help her, for whatever that may be worth. I hope that will be enough. Gods, I hope it will be enough. I hope that in seven months I really can cast my vote for President on her behalf. I can't even bear right now to consider the alternative.

Tom Zarek reminded me yesterday that Apollo was both the ancient god of the hunt and of healing. He said a mortal could only choose one side, and asked me if I had chosen. Well, there's no doubt in my mind which side I would chose now, if it could make any difference. Being a mortal, however, the fact is that all I can do is pray.


	6. Day 14

Setting: Mid-way through the events in "Act of Contrition".  
Spoilers: Up through episode 1.04.

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Day 14

Consider it official. I will never be a politician. That in itself isn't a bad thing, but I must acknowledge that I have very little talent as an impromptu speaker. Whatever my strong points may be, spur-of-the-moment eloquence is not among them.

I stood in front of my pilots today... those few that remain... and I could see in their eyes that they expected... even hoped... for some kind of inspiration from me. They wanted comfort and encouragement. I'm supposed to be their leader. They were looking to me to help guide them through this latest tragedy.

A freak accident on the flight deck killed 13 of my people yesterday evening. 7 others were seriously injured – 2 of them may yet die, and another will never fly again. I barely knew any of them on a personal level, but for those who have been serving here on Galactica since the before the Holocaust, those pilots were far more than statistical casualties. They were partners. Friends. Family. We've all seen so much loss that you could almost begin to get numb to it, but these deaths and injuries have hit the squadron very hard. After all that we've been through together in recent days, to lose so many of our number now... so needlessly... it's just impossible to make any sense of it.

There is no way to _talk_ that kind of pain and loss away. Yet I know that my pilots wanted me to say _something_ in the briefing room today... to drop some pearl of wisdom that might make some sense of this ongoing insanity. And I couldn't come up with a blessed thing. I feel like I let them all down. Thankfully, Dad did what I could not. He didn't talk the pain away by any means, but he told us all what we needed to hear; in spite of all this madness and disaster surrounding us, our lives DO yet still have a purpose, and a very important one at that.

Dad has always cringed over the notion that a senior military leader must be both a warrior and a diplomat. In truth though, he has a natural gift for public speaking, especially when he _isn't_ reading off of a page. He has a way of speaking _to_ people, rather than _at_ them. He didn't bring that gift home with him very often when I was growing up, but there is no denying it's an integral part of his success as a battlestar commander. It's quite clear to me now why this crew has such a strong sense of loyalty and respect for Dad. They know he loves them, and they love him for it.

I may not be very good at speeches, but I think I have done better one-on-one with my pilots. During the funeral service today, I noticed that a few of them were struggling to hold it together. Carrie lost her two best friends yesterday. Morgan is new to Galactica (a refugee from _Columbia_) but he survived only because two other pilots were standing directly in front of him when the comm drone exploded. The other two pilots both died. Morgan was unscathed. After the funeral, I went to talk to each one of them, separately of course, and they were both reluctant at first to talk to me. With just a little encouragement though, they both opened up and I think it helped them. They both claimed it did anyway.

Kara worries me a little bit too. She's been quiet ever since the accident. _Very_ quiet. And the expression I saw on her face during the funeral... I've seen that expression before. At _Zak's_ funeral. Kara's going to be a tough one though. She's never been one to engage in serious conversations, especially when they're about her. She's meeting with Dad right now. He plans to assign her to the duty of training new Viper pilots. There's no one better qualified, and we certainly need new pilots ASAP. But I can't help wondering if she might find it difficult to transition back into flight instructor mode, especially considering how that phase of her career came to an end. If she has any reservations or doubts though, she may be more likely to address them with Dad than with me. The two of them are far closer than I ever realized before I came here. Sometimes I think she's more like family to him than I am.

I wonder if Dad knows... about Zak that is. I don't think he does. When Kara "confessed her sins" to me back at Ragnar, I know it was the first time she'd ever spoken of it. I really don't think that she's broached the subject at all with him. Surely there would have been _some_ detectable fall-out. He was the one who orchestrated her transfer from flight school to Galactica. If he's the one who is now asking her to go back... how can the subject of what happened to Zak not come up? I think I need to brace myself for potential turbulence over the next few days.

I've actually thought a lot about Zak today myself. The funeral service, the ceremony and protocols, reminded me constantly of the day I buried my little brother. At times it felt like I was reliving that event. Yet most surprising is that, as painful as those memories are, I no longer feel the anger along with them that I once did. I'm not sure what brought about this change over the past two weeks, especially since I've held on tight to that anger for two fraking years. Maybe I've just begun to see my father in a different light. Maybe it's because the loss of my brother no longer makes me unique among my peers. When everyone around me now has actually lost more family than I have, it's difficult to engage in self-pity. Maybe... maybe it's because I realized that even if Zak had listen to me instead of Dad, and pursued a career in engineering instead of flight... I'd probably still be mourning him today. He probably would have been planetside, probably at Picon Fleet Headquarters, when the bombs started falling. Maybe, in the end, it was better that he was spared the horror of that day.

Bottom line is this: I couldn't have saved my brother and Dad couldn't have saved him either.

There. Took me two years, but I've said it. To myself, at least.

Now, how long is it going to take me to say it to my father?


	7. Day 16

Setting: Just after the events in "You Can't Go Home Again".  
Spoilers: Up through episode 1.05 + some backstory provided in season 2.

----------------------------------------

Day 16

Finally, I feel like we won one for a change! Looking back objectively at the past 2 days, it wasn't really much of a victory, but it sure feels like one right now. I guess I'm just not very objective where Kara is concerned. All right, let's face it... for the last 2 days I've tossed objectivity out the window. There have been too many fraking losses since this whole nightmare began. (Lords, was it really only just 2 weeks ago?) I just didn't have it in me to suck it up, add one more name to the casualty list, and then move on. Not this time. Not that name.

It's been a grueling two days since Kara went missing. Everyone has been working around the clock. Fuel reserves were guzzled by keeping all of our birds flying. A third of my vipers are still disabled from the all the crap being pulled through the engines in the moon's atmosphere. We even pulled the CAP and deployed the civilian ships into a search pattern across the system to increase the chances of finding her. It was risky, especially knowing that the arrival of a Cylon attack force had to be imminent. Geez, spelling it out now really does make it all sound grossly irresponsible. President Roslin was right to call us on the carpet for it. It felt like Dad and I were called into the principal's office to be assigned detention, but I can't say that I have any regrets. How can I be sorry when the end result was precisely what I'd hoped for?

I guess I have to consider why Dad and I were both so determined not to give up the search. Why was it so hard to even consider letting Kara go? I never really know what goes on in Dad's mind, but he talked to Kara about Zak just a few hours before she went missing in action. She finally told him that she improperly passed Zak through Basic Flight and sent him up to Vipers knowing that he wasn't qualified. It's partly my fault how that unhappy disclosure came about. I blabbed... unintentionally... thinking that Dad already knew. I didn't tell him everything, just enough to know that I'd said _too much_ and forcing Kara into a confession that she wasn't ready to make. Judging by how Dad was acting after that conversation, it would be a gross understatement to say that he didn't take the news well. I think Kara may have had her first exposure to _The Look_. I grew up with it. I know that it's far worse than any ranting or yelling could possibly be. For Kara, seeing it for the first time was probably one of the most unsettling experiences of her life.

Dad and Kara have grown very close over the past 2 years. It shouldn't surprise me. She was family for him during a time when his own family had left him behind. Mom had moved on and I'd shut him out of my life. Kara was a link back to Zak and he became more of a father to her than any she'd ever had. He considers her his daughter, and he had bitter words with her only hours before she went missing. He told me that he went to such lengths for her because she was family... and where family is concerned, you do whatever it takes, even if it means breaking the rules. But I don't think he was entirely honest with me. I think in large part, he was acting out of guilt, for possibly ending things on such painful terms with her. Just doing whatever it takes for family? It would be a first. He never went out of his way for his family before. Granted, it was never a_ life and death_ situation before.

Shit, I don't know what to think.

I sound like I'm being petty and jealous, don't I? Maybe I am jealous. Maybe that's why I asked him if he would have put in as much effort to find me, if I were lost. He told me he would have. He told me he would never give up looking for me. I'd like to believe him... but I'm not sure I do. He and Kara share a bond unlike any he's ever had with me.

And yet, over the past couple of days, we've been of such a like mind. It wasn't even something we needed to talk about. We both just knew we were on the same page and went forward from there. I haven't told him the full truth yet about the life I left behind on Caprica. I don't know when I'll be able to... if ever... but I know all about the pain and guilt that comes with loosing someone you love after leaving things on bad terms. I know what it's like to wish with all your heart that that last conversation had been different, and I saw that familiar pain in Dad's face when Kara disappeared. Without even intending to, Kara has brought Dad and me together in a way that we've never managed on our own. Maybe he and I aren't so different after all and it took a common purpose and a common pain like this to demonstrate that to me.

The President claimed that both Dad and I were really doing this because we hadn't come to terms with losing Zak. That may have been partly true for Dad. He admitted it was. But the President was wrong about me. I _know_ that through all those hours of searching, it wasn't Zak I was hoping to find... and it wasn't Gianne either. I'll never wholly stop grieving for my brother, or for my lady... but I was doing this for _Kara_. Why? It's not just because she's my best pilot. It's not because I need her to train new pilots. It's not because she saved my life at Ragnar. It's NOT because she makes my job easier! She's been a pain the ass, after all. Insubordinate. Argumentative. Difficult. Irritating.

Maybe it's because of all those things.

Maybe it's because I can't conceive of how I would get through this endless nightmare without her. She's the only person on this ship who comes close to knowing me. She's the only person that I can just be myself with. She doesn't give a frak for the titles, and while sometimes that can be a problem, it can also be a great relief. It doesn't damage her opinion of me if I forget the brush and have to paint with my fingers instead. And who else among this crew would ever have given me the lowdown on my father's long, obnoxious super-fart during his 1000th landing? To her, I'm not "_Captain Adama, Commander of the Air Group and Personal Advisor to the President_." I'm just Lee. She sees me and knows me for _who_ I am, not for _what_ I am. And Lords, I need that in my life right now.

I've already offered a few prayers of thanks, and I'll offer a few more before I turn in... which for an agnostic is pretty significant. If the Lords of Kobol are real, they were looking out for Kara and they brought her home. It's kind of ironic that in spite of all our efforts and the risks we placed on the fleet, in the end it was Kara who saved herself. We could have just sat on our asses and waited. She found her own way back, in a _high-jacked Cylon Raider_ no less. Yet in spite of the ultimate futility of all my efforts over 2 straight days, I don't feel that any of my time or efforts were wasted. Kara is safe, and for the most part she's well. It's only a small victory under the circumstances and Kara may have won it for herself, but I'll take it gladly! What else is a warrior to do after losing the big one, but try to win a few little ones?


	8. Day 18

Setting: Just after the events in "Litmus".  
Spoilers: Up through episode 1.06.

------------------------------------

Day 18

It's happened again. A Cylon agent has set off another bomb onboard Galactica. This time, however, we know who the bomber was. And this time, I can write about it here. The can of worms has been opened to the public. It's no longer classified.

The Cylons now look human.

My father first became aware of this alarming fact back on Ragnar Anchorage. He was confronted there and assaulted by a human-looking Cylon who called himself Leoben Conoy. At first, Conoy tried to pass himself off as an arms dealer, but the radiation emitted by the Ragnar storms revealed him to be a Cylon. After Dad killed him, Conoy's body was brought on board and underwent an autopsy and chemical analysis, which confirmed that although his systems appear on sight to be the same as ours, they are constructed from synthetic materials. Dr. Gaius Baltar (rescued from Caprica by Boomer during the Holocaust, and now our resident mad scientist) was given the task of devising a "Cylon detector" that could screen humans from Cylons, _PRE_-mortem of course. At that time, only Dad, Colonel Tigh, and Dr. Baltar knew that the Cylons look like us now.

Dr. Baltar proved his genius and devised a preliminary screening method before we even left Ragnar, and came up with a positive detection for a man named Aaron Doral, a civilian assigned to Galactica by Colonial Fleet's Public Relations office. Doral was the coordinator for the decommissioning ceremony. That was how I first met him. He was the smarmy little man responsible for organizing the father-son photo session prior to the ceremony; the little family reunion that turned into a bitter confrontation between Dad and me. (Hmm. Does that mean I can blame that particular squabble on the Cylon? Nah. Afraid not.) After the ceremony, Doral boarded the soon-to-be Colonial One, where I encountered him again, trying to undermine Laura Roslin's authority. I wish I could say that my instincts told me there was something seriously wrong with Doral. I definitely didn't like him, but I thought he was just annoying, not dangerous. Luckily, he was flagged before we left Ragnar, and was left behind. _One_ less mole to worry about.

Ten days ago, however, a series of explosions destroyed Galactica's water tanks. It was during the investigation of this event that I first learned the Cylons look completely human now. My father declared that he even believes there is at least one human-looking Cylon currently on board Galactica, hiding out as a member of the crew. We still believe this Cylon to be responsible for the bombing of our water tanks, but we have no evidence identifying who it might be. That information was not released at that time to any other division leads, or even to Sergeant Hadrian, Galactica's Master at Arms. My father, with agreement from the President, feared the news had more potential to cause chaos than anything else, spawning instant paranoia and a deluge of false accusations. Dr. Baltar's initial Cylon detector was not viable for large scale screenings, and a new method remains under development. So, the information remained compartmented and classified.

Yesterday, Aaron Doral turned up again, or at least another copy of him did. He came on board Galactica with a group of civilians from other ships in the fleet to be interviewed for possible assignment to Galactica's crew. We've been operating under combat conditions with only a skeleton crew since the Holocaust, and we need more hands in _every_ department, not just deck crew and pilots. Even the galley and laundry are understaffed. Somehow, he slipped away from the civilian group, killed a marine guard, accessed a small arms locker on C deck, stole G4 explosives, and took a stroll. Dad recognized Doral before he reached his objective – whatever that might have been – but rather than allowing himself to be captured, he blew himself up, killing 3 crew members and injuring 13 more. Dad was nearly among the casualties. Colonel Tigh knocked him out of harm's way just in time.

An independent tribunal was convened to investigate how Doral gained access to the small arms locker and hopefully to identify the Cylon among us, but Dad had to force an end to the proceedings almost immediately. As Dad explained it to me, Sergeant Hadrian was using the tribunal not to uncover the _facts_ of the situation, but rather to implicate _everyone_ in a conspiracy in order to cover her own ass for the failures of our internal security. The witch spawned her own witch hunt. (Okay, Dad didn't put it _that_ way. I did.) The "result" of the tribunal was to declare Specialist Socinus guilty of dereliction of duty, while the Cylon on Galactica remains undetected. According to Dad though, Specialist Socinus perjured himself by declaring that his own negligence allowed Doral to gain access to the small arms locker. Socinus lied in order to protect Chief Tyrol, who has been banging Boomer, in spite of orders to call off the affair. Apparently _everybody_ knew about the affair... _except me_. I'm still the _new_ guy and still out of the loop for all the onboard scuttlebutt. Even Kara didn't let me in on that one.

Since the tribunal was an utter failure, Dad thinks that our best hope for identifying this Cylon mole lies with individual division leaders. He believes we know our people, and we will be the best judge of any suspicious behavior. Until Dr. Baltar's screening method can be put to use, it's up to us to keep our eyes open and remain vigilant. The secret is out now, so it's entirely possible that the mole will be under increased pressure and more likely to make a mistake. Logical assumption for Dad to make... for all the _other_ division leaders anyway. As for me? I was the only one on the ship who didn't know Boomer was doing the Chief. Obviously I'm not yet the best judge of behaviors amongst my pilots. That doesn't excuse me of any responsibility by any means, but I may need to recruit a second pair of eyes. Kara would be the obvious choice. She's in the loop around here, and she's known most of the pilots a lot longer than I have. Unfortunately, she's still laid up in sick bay with a busted knee. For the time being at least, I'll have to tackle this chore on my own.

It's nerve wracking knowing there is a traitor and saboteur among us, and not knowing who we can really trust. From a completely objective viewpoint, there are only two people that I personally can consider as being above _all_ suspicion: my father and Colonel Tigh. There were no human-looking Cylons at the time of the first Cylon War, so the synthetic-human types must be a new evolution in Cylon technology. I've known Dad and Saul Tigh my entire life, and they both fought in the first Cylon war, so I can count them out of the list of suspects. Technically, _everybody_ else must remain suspect for now.

_Practically_ though, there are a few others that I feel safe in trusting.  
(1) Kara, of course. No true logic behind this one, but I'd stake my life on it anyway. Hell, I already have.(2) President Roslin. It was by her initiative – by her _order_ - that we assembled the surviving civilian ships together into a fleet in the first place. She organized what is left of our civilization. That's not the work of a Cylon intent on our extinction.  
(3) Chief Tyrol. I hardly know the man, but I know Dad trusts him implicitly... at least where the running of the ship is concerned. The man knows the ins and outs of this ship better than anybody, and he's a mechanical whiz. He may not know how to keep his fly zipped, but if he wanted to destroy the Galactica, we _would_ already be dust.

That's about it I'm afraid. Hopefully, as time goes on and as I become better acquainted with people around here, I'll be able to add to the list. I know I have to keep my eyes open, and I've said this here before, but I have a difficult time imagining that the Cylon mole could possibly be one of my own pilots. I've flown into combat with every single one of them. I've seen them _all_ place their lives at risk to protect the fleet. Obviously the revelation about Boomer tells me I still have a few things to learn about these people, but I can't conceive that any of them might be a traitor. I pray to the Gods that I won't be proven wrong.


	9. Day 24

Setting: Just after the events in "Six Degrees of Separation".  
Spoilers: Up through episode 1.07.

----------------------------------------------

Day 24

Dad has girl issues!

This afternoon a gorgeous leggy blonde tried to put the moves on him, and his reaction was to think, "She's not human!"

She said her name was Shelly Godfrey. I never got a look at her myself, but everyone who did agrees that she was one hot number. She arrived this morning claiming to have evidence that would prove Dr. Baltar was a traitor. She turned out to be a fake, but..._ what_ was it that truly made Dad suspicious of her? It wasn't Dr. Baltar's protests. It wasn't that the evidence she presented appeared to be inconclusive right from the start._ What was it?_ It was when she started_ coming on to him_ that he suddenly knew there had to be something wrong with her!

It's a miracle I didn't crack up laughing when Dad briefed Colonel Tigh and me on his "near miss" (yes, he actually called it that!) with this suspicious lady. Geez Old Man. No wonder he hasn't had a date in years.

I shouldn't make fun really. This mysterious Ms. Godfrey somehow just vanished without a trace as soon the disk that she provided as evidence was revealed to be a sham. In spite of a fleet-wide search, there has been no trace of her. We're assuming at this point that she was another of the human-model Cylons and she was attempting to frame Dr. Baltar before he could complete work on his Cylon detector. Why bother with the clumsy subterfuge though? Why not just kill him? Not good enough, perhaps. His equipment and notes would have still been available, and someone else may have been able to finish what he started. But if he was branded a traitor, all of his work so far would have been discredited and destroyed as a precaution. Still, it was a pretty sloppy frame-up job. Lt. Gaeta figured it all out in less than a day. He claimed it was almost too easy. Either these human-Cylons aren't too bright... or something else entirely is going on.

And just how did Shelly Godfrey disappear? No ships left Galactica and the Old Girl's been searched top-to-bottom twice. There's no way Godfrey could have left the ship unless she tossed herself out of an airlock. Cylons have shown their willingness for suicide missions before, but there are no indicators that any airlocks were opened today.

No it's not funny at all. Pretty damn unsettling actually.

But Frak It! Old Husker Got Smooched By a Cylon! I can't ever let him live this down.

I got lucky with a blonde too today, though mine wanted to beat the crap out of me rather than seduce me. Kara is back on her feet! Not easily... or quietly. Lots of grumbling, but she's vertical again. I had to engage in a bit of subterfuge of my own, with Colonel Tigh's help no less. Kara would undoubtedly hate me if she found out I was the one who sicked him on her, but it worked. I tried pissing her off on my own earlier, but couldn't quite get her riled enough to do more than take a few steps. Tigh, however, pushed all the right buttons and succeeded in propelling her all the way down to the flight deck.

These past two weeks of incapacity have really been hard on her. So much of Kara's self-esteem is wrapped up in her fierce reputation as a pilot and a warrior. Being unable to either fly or to fight has been a huge blow. Dad and I have tried to keep her spirits up, but it's been pretty difficult in light of the fact that Doc Cottle is STILL unwilling to speculate on whether or not Kara will ever be cleared to fly a viper again. Her knee simply might not heal sufficiently to hold up to the stress and it will be several weeks, at best, before we know.

Unfortunately, Kara's never been good at waiting and she's never really been comfortable in her own head. She needs to be kept occupied or she gets easily depressed. So when Doc Cottle gave the go-ahead this morning, I made it my mission to get Kara mobile again ASAP. What a difference getting her back to work has made! When she arrived on the flight deck, still hobbling on crutches, she was obviously still in pain, but there was no trace of self-doubt on her face anymore. I could just see the old fire in her coming back to life and there was no chance that she would just give up and return to bed again. She almost looked like a little kid being told he can play with his favorite toy again after being grounded for a week. And this particular toy belongs to Kara alone... and boy does she know it. The Chief has been trying for several days to get something on the Raider to work again, but all it did for him was to take a dump on the flight deck. Then Kara shows up, slithers her way back inside (knee brace and all) and instantly the Raider comes back to life... so to speak. The Chief was green with envy, but he was just excited enough to finally be making some headway that he wasn't going to bother nursing a bruised pride. Once Kara found the "on" switch, those two kids were playing happily with their new toy for the rest of the day.

That Raider has turned out to be quite a revelation for all of us. The old Raiders from the first Cylon War - the ones Dad flew against in his day - were piloted by the combined efforts of 3 Cylon pilots; a clunky and inefficient process that gave our own pilots a tremendous advantage. In the old days, it was commonly accepted that the Cylons needed a 4-to-1 advantage of numbers to claim a victory over our Viper squadrons. The problem was that the Cylons knew this too and rarely engaged unless they did have the numbers, which was more frequent than anyone cares to remember. But things have changed and we have now lost our one-for-one advantage in the field. These new Raiders are faster, more agile, and more efficient by an order of magnitude over their predecessors. Now we know why. These new Raiders have no Cylon pilots. The Raiders now ARE Cylons. They are an ingenious bio-mechanical organism, complete with respiratory system, musculature, an integrated brain, and a... well, lets call it a "waste disposal" system. Essentially, the Raiders are now living beings. Though I did like the Chief's take on it too. "Crunchy outside, chewy inside."

The Cylons are evolving, and for reasons I don't understand they have begun to transition away from their purely mechanical nature and adapt into biological forms. Before the Raider was brought on board, I assumed that the human-looking models were probably few in number among the Cylons overall, constructed solely for the purpose of infiltration into human society but NOT representative of the norm in Cylon society, which would cling to their mechanical roots. Now, after seeing the transition of even a Raider into a bio-organism, I'm starting to believe that this trend toward biologic evolution is indicative of all Cylons. But I am completely puzzled as to why. Why not just evolve into more technologically advanced machines? Why subject themselves to the weaknesses of the flesh? Why would they WANT to become like us while simultaneously trying to exterminate us? They certainly don't need flesh and blood if they just want to shoot us. It doesn't make sense. To be honest, the more I think about their motives, the more uneasy I feel. The effort required to achieve this drastic evolution within only 40 years must have been_ enormous_. Why bother? Just to finish what they started 50 years ago? It has to be more than that. They had their freedom! We saw no sign of them for 40 years! Why didn't they just leave us alone?

What the frak do they want?

I've never thought to ask that question before. I've just been concentrated on getting myself up to speed as a CAG and finding my way around with the ship and her crew. I've never stopped to think much about the enemy and what might be going on in their heads. Perhaps I need to give this more consideration. We do, after all, still suspect that there remains a Cylon mole on board Galactica, and perhaps others hidden amongst the civilians in the fleet. Maybe if we could figure out what their game plan is, we'd be better prepared to defend against it.

Maybe Dad should have cozied on up to that hot blonde model after all. Maybe he could have learned something from her, though it didn't sound like she had conversation on the agenda. Seduction has been a means of intelligence gathering since the art of spying was invented. A few masterful Husker moves, and she might have been willing to tell him anything he wanted. Instead he bolts for the door and calls security.

He really needs a date.


	10. Day 26

Setting: Just after the events in "Flesh and Bone".  
Spoilers: Up through episode 1.08.

--------------------------------------

Day 26

Another human-looking Cylon turned up in the fleet yesterday. Like the "Aaron Doral" type, this model has been encountered before. He was the Cylon who gave Dad a close call back on the Ragnar Anchorage. He called himself "Leoben Conoy." At Ragnar, he tried to pass himself off as just an arms dealer, but when he was isolated alone with Dad, he turned on the mind games. After Dad revealed the existence of human-looking Cylons to his senior staff a few weeks ago, I read Dad's report on his first encounter with Conoy. Clever bastard, this particular Cylon. A first-class mind-frakker.

It was clear to me in Dad's report that he'd been pretty rattled by Conoy. That was partly due to the shock of first discovering that our mortal enemy now has a human face, but I think it goes a lot deeper than just appearances. Cylons have always been just machines to us: progrmmed hunks of metal with tinny, monotone voices. They weren't true _life_-forms. There was no moral ambiguity about destroying them. Now they speak with emotion. They sweat. They bleed. And in Conoy's case, they spout philosophy and debate matters of the eternal soul. Long ago, we welded and snapped together their metallic frames and downloaded software into their brain chips that included a low-level of artificial intelligence. But we never gave them religion. We never taught them how to pray. We certainly never gave them souls. Yet somehow our subservient drones have evolved into a creature with all the trademarks of what we would have to consider as sentient life. It's a disturbing thought, but I can't deny the fact any longer that the Cylons are indeed _alive_.

Living or otherwise, however, the Cylons remain our enemy. Perhaps it would be best to view them now as a hostile tribe; they're an insurgent band of humans who are intent upon destroying civilization as we know it. Humanity does have a very long history of tribal warfare. It's the reason we created Cylons in the first place. This is just the latest round. As far as I'm concerned then, these Cylon moles among us are no different than terrorists, and they should be expected to employ all of the time-honored tricks of war. Suicide bombings. Sabotage. Spying. Misinformation. Why wouldn't they engage in these things? Everything they know about war, they learned by watching us.

The first copy of Conoy told Dad that he was an "observer of human nature." I think that's a euphemism for saying that his job is to gather intelligence about people and then profile them. Then if it suits his mission, he uses what he's gleaned about a person to try to manipulate them. That appears to be the case with all copies of this "Conoy" model. The latest version, discovered hiding on the Geminon Traveler, was definitely cut from the same mold.

Unfortunately, it wasn't Dad who faced off with Conoy #2 yesterday. It was Kara. Dad chose _her_ to handle the interrogation. What was he thinking? He said he needed someone who could stay focused on the job and not get confused by all of Conoy's mind games. If that was really what Dad wanted, Kara should have been the first to be _disqualified_ for the job. Unfortunately he didn't ask for my input. I didn't even know about it until after she was already in place on the Geminon Traveler. I didn't have the chance to object until it was too late.

Kara is a tough lady, but she has a long history of allowing her emotions to cloud her judgment. She tries to appear stoic, but she's actually quite vulnerable and it doesn't take much effort at all to push her buttons and set her off. That's why she's been to the brig so many times. That's why she passed Zak through flight school. That's why she tried to prematurely bounce the nuggets out of training only 10 days ago. She's a bundle of emotion barely contained under a cool exterior. And frak it, she's been laid up in sickbay with a shattered knee and fighting borderline depression for several days. Colonel Tigh and I had to _manipulate_ her to get her out of bed. And only one day later, Dad sends her off to face a manipulating, mind-twisting Cylon? I ask again, what was Dad thinking? Is he really so utterly blind to her weaknesses? I understand that he'd want to help her regain her confidence and show her that she's valuable to us whether she can fly a viper or not, but sending her to deal with Conoy was a mistake.

As soon as Kara came back to Galactica she proved me right. She didn't get any information out of him, but he did a number on her. She was quiet and very evasive for a long time. She finally opened up to me (at least a little bit) late in the evening and basically confirmed what I'd feared. This is the woman who was going to snipe Tom Zarek in the head without any hesitation, but she was disturbed about seeing a _Cylon_ blown out of an airlock. Apparently Conoy succeeded in convincing her that Cylons have souls and she was truly bothered by the prospect that Conoy's soul might not find its way to his God. I can't say whether Cylons have souls or not, but the fact is I don't care. If he had a soul and it vanished into oblivion... so much the better. If there was a human traitor who contributed to the Holocaust, I'd blow his head off personally and wouldn't give a frak for the disposition of his soul either.

Conoy also succeeded in half-convincing Kara that he was clairvoyant. He guessed who she was. He knew things about her. Personal things. She wouldn't tell me what exactly he knew about her... but it really rattled her. I tried to convince her that all of it could be explained by the mere fact that he was a _spy_. It was his _job_ to know things about us. He's been gathering information about key personnel all along – her included. He didn't have to _guess_ her name. He knew her on sight. He just played it up to make it appear otherwise, like a mystical mind-reading trick, and she bought it. Worse, once he succeeded in bending her to buy into his mind-reading act, he started playing fortune teller. She told me he gave her a clue about our future. Yes, this came from a creature who doesn't want us to _have_ a future.

I tried addressing the whole situation with her from a completely logical and scientific viewpoint, but I think I only made minimal headway. She got a little peeved with me at one point and countered back by telling me that not everything about the universe can be learned from a textbook. I just told her that a textbook is a more reliable source than a manipulative Cylon. If her leg wasn't still bound up in a full-length brace, I think she would have tried to smack me. As it was, she had to settle for tossing a cherry tomato at me, but she caught Hot Dog on the back of the head instead. At least that got a smile out of her. She finally headed off for her rack in a better mood than before we'd talked, but she's still obviously very confused.

Oh Kara. Dad really fraked up when he sent you into that spider's web and you got tangled up in there good. At least this particular spider got squashed. Now how do we flush out the others that are still lurking around?


	11. Day 28

Setting: Just after the events in "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down".  
Spoilers: Up through episode 1.09.

------------------------------------------------

Day 28

Note to self: Choose seating carefully at Dad's dinner parties. Specifically, do not sit opposite Ellen Tigh.

2nd Note to self: Maintain safe distance – outside of arm's reach – at any time that Ellen Tigh is drunk.

Wouldn't you know it? Just when I think I have the advantage for potential ridicule over my father, that notion gets shot to hell. Instead of being able to needle him mercilessly about getting bussed by a Cylon, I end up having to conceal the fact that I got goosed by "Auntie Ellen." Creeps me out just thinking about it.

As the fairy tale goes, our damsel-in-distress, Colonel Tigh's wife Ellen, was knocked unconscious in the spaceport on Picon right in the midst of the Cylon attack; then she was selflessly rescued by some anonymous savior, who valiantly carried her onto the last ship to escape from the Holocaust, the ultra-posh luxury liner _Rising Star_. (Of course it couldn't have been a garbage scow, could it?) Then after three weeks in a coma, Sleeping Beauty awakened (with a miraculously clean bill of health) and dutifully sought to be reunited with her loving husband.

What a load of crap!

Dad was the first to find out that the bitch was back and tried, for a few days at least, to hide that fact from Saul. Dad even thought she might actually be a Cylon agent, with the mission of turning Saul's mind to mush, no doubt. Unfortunately, Dr. Baltar shot that theory down with his new handy-dandy Cylon detector. It turns out that she is all too human, but I still think it likely that she is bent upon turning Saul's brain to mush. The saddest part is that he really doesn't see it. He has actually bought into her ludicrous story.

Apparently this is the way it's always been with Saul and his wife. According to Dad, she's been leading him around by the nose, and sleeping around behind his back, since practically the day they met. The whole fleet knew she was being unfaithful to him before he did. Yet he never left her. And while Saul has always struggled with a weakness for alcohol, Ellen has the effect on him of magnifying the problem by a power of ten. I guess she's as much of an addiction to him as the alcohol. He knows he should give it up, but can't, and one addiction just ends up feeding the other. Talk about a train wreck in the making.

I only met her a few times while I was growing up, and the last occasion was many years ago. I think I was only about 14 at the time. It was one of those rare occasions when Dad was home for the holiday on Beltane and he invited Saul and Ellen to join us for dinner. I remember that Mom wasn't happy about having the extra company, but until the Tighs arrived I didn't know why. After they arrived... well let me just say that Zak and I tried to stay as far away from the adults as we could manage on a family holiday. What I remember most clearly about that evening was how _loud_ she was. Zak actually asked me if she had a hearing problem. She insisted on being called "Auntie Ellen" and even back then had an annoying penchant for trying to pinch my cheeks... though her aim is a little lower these days.

I'm not surprised that that was the last time that Mom welcomed Saul and Ellen to join us for dinner as a couple. Mom managed to remain polite and play the perfect hostess all evening, but after the Tighs left she and Dad had a very long discussion behind closed doors. They kept their voices down pretty well, but Zak and I both knew they were fighting and we didn't have any illusions that Mom and Dad might get back together after that. Saul joined the family a few times, alone, over the next few years, but I never saw Ellen again until tonight. There's no way in hell that I'm going to call her "Auntie" anymore, but she's still as loud as ever. And it isn't just my cheeks (high or low) that she's grabbing at these days. At dinner tonight, while sitting right next to her oblivious husband, she actually... No, I'm not even going to say it. I don't even want to think about it. It's too damn creepy.

It does leave me with a dilemma though. What, if anything, do I tell Colonel Tigh? He's both my boss and my father's best friend. By that token, should I be honor-bound to tell him the truth... that his drunken floozy of a wife molested me just a few hours after they were reunited? Or do I just hold my tongue? Would it serve any useful purpose to tell him or would it be just plain callous? He loves her. Blindly, but he loves her.

I can't believe that she feels the same way about him. In fact, I'm convinced that she's using him for her own purposes. I don't know why she was on the Rising Star, but it was no accident. I suspect she was carrying on an affair with someone else on board that ship and the sap came to his senses, giving her no choice but to go back to Saul... with a cockamamie story trumped up to cover her ass. Sadly he bought it and is now living under this illusion that he and Ellen are starting over, with a clean slate and pure intentions.

Should I shatter those illusions? Or should I allow him whatever happiness being reunited with Ellen is giving him? There is certainly little enough cause for happiness these days. At dinner tonight even Dad commented that Saul looked happier than he's been in a very long time, and Dad despises Ellen. I guess I'll just keep my trap shut for now. She was drunk this evening. Soused out of her mind. If it only happens once, I can just chalk it up to the booze and an isolated incident of bad judgment on her part.

But what the frak do I do if it happens again?


	12. Day 37 38

Setting: Mid-way through the events in "The Hand of God".  
Spoilers: Up through episode 1.10.

----------------------------------

Day 37 - correction 38

03:00 hours. It's really amazing how quiet some sections of this ship actually get at "night". I spent a couple of hours earlier down by my secondary viper (the Mark II) and barely saw a handful of crewmen the whole time. The pilots' ready room is even more deserted. I've been in here for an hour and had it all to myself. Atlantia was _never _this quiet, regardless of the time of day. Solitude was impossible. Finding isolation so readily here really drives home to me just how seriously understaffed Galactica is, in all divisions. There are too fraking few of us left.

I should be asleep. I have a big day tomorrow. I tried to lie down for a while, but the effort was wasted. I just have too much on my mind. So, here I am, just sitting up alone and waiting for morning, when I will fly the most important mission of my career so far. It won't be the _biggest _engagement, by any means. Our brief holding action at Ragnar still holds the crown for that. But, this will be the first time that I've ever commanded an _offensive _operation. Until now, it's been all defense. Hold off the enemy just long enough to spin up the FTL drives and jump to safety. I can practically do a combat landing in my sleep now. Actually, I think I _have _done a few in my sleep. Delay and escape. Delay and escape. That's been our entire military strategy since the Holocaust. Keep the casualties to an absolute minimum, and evade.

Tomorrow, however, we attack. Desperate measures for desperate times. We're damn near out of fuel, and a Cylon base is sitting right on top of a tylium mother lode. We don't know how many Raiders defend that base, but it's likely that my vipers will be outnumbered by a margin of at least 5-to-1. If it were my call, we'd have gone looking for tylium elsewhere. I can't deny that there's no guarantee that we could find another source of tylium in time, and even if we did it's possible the Cylons would be waiting there too. But this is a _huge _risk going on the offensive now, when I have barely two dozen active pilots, and many of those are rooks who have never flown in combat before. The Old Man thinks otherwise, and he's made his choice, so attack we will.

Kara has come up with this crazy ass plan of bait and switch that will hopefully draw the Cylons off from their base and blunt their advantage of numbers. It's a gutsy plan, but it also means dividing what few vipers I have into two attack groups. If all goes well, Group 1 will engage only briefly then withdraw and lead the Cylons off. Then, I should be able to get Group 2 down to the Cylon base, destroy the base, and redirect our flight to take from behind the Raiders pursuing Group 1. It might just work... but by dividing up the squadron, this plan also creates the potential for Group 1 to be outnumbered by 10-to-1 until Group 2 can join them. Against these new Raiders, those odds are tantamount to suicide. Half of my squadron is potentially being sacrificed to allow the other half to reach the asteroid and take out the base. I know that the use of Forlorn Hopes in combat goes back many centuries, but I've never been a fan of that tactic. Dad and Kara have assured me they won't let it go that far, and will call off the assault before it can become a complete massacre... but if the numbers turn badly against us, those first 12 vipers could be wiped out within seconds, subsequently leaving Group 2 cut off from Galactica and also facing impossible odds.

The primary objective of the operation is to destroy the base, so that the Raiders will have nowhere to land unless they jump away, leaving the asteroid and the tylium to Galactica. So long as that happens, it will be considered a "successful" mission. Whether or not any of my pilots survive the mission is only a secondary consideration... at least it is to everyone else. Everyone else BUT me. Working out the strike force assignments yesterday was one of the hardest things I've ever done. The fact is that even under the best of circumstances, Group 1 is being used as bait to draw out the brunt of the Cylon defenses, and will be less likely to survive. How do you decide who to sacrifice when no one is expendable? Group 1 will be engaged in ship-to-ship combat longer than Group 2, so I want my strongest, most experienced pilots in Group 1. However, Group 2 is assigned the critical task of taking out the base, and if we fail, this will all be for nothing, so I can't just tag all the rooks to come along with me. In the end, I tried to just balance experience between both groups, with my very best dogfighters leading Group 1. Everyone accepted their assignments without question or objection. There were a few notably nervous expressions in the briefing room, but they all know what's at stake, and I have absolutely no doubt that every single one of them will give 110 tomorrow, if not their very lives.

I have to admit to being nervous about this op myself, but it isn't because I'm afraid of dying. Maybe it's pure denial, but I really believe that I won't die tomorrow. I AM going to blow that base to hell and land safely back on Galactica. What scares me is the thought of being one of only a few survivors. I'll get the fraking job done, but if the rest of my squadron gets obliterated while the fleet sits back and celebrates a victory... well, things could get very messy in the mission debriefing. Kara had better pray to the Gods that never happens or she'll need a little divine intervention.

It's hard to even think about Kara right now. It's becoming more and more apparent that she is not the friend that I remember. To be honest, at the moment it's difficult to think of her as a friend at all. It's as though when I became her boss, I was reclassified in her mind as the enemy. She's always had a problem with authority figures and now that apparently includes me.

"We're not friends, you're the CAG." That's what she told me shortly after our escape from the Colonies. At the time I chalked it up to exhaustion, frayed nerves, and short tempers. Now... I think she really meant it. Regardless of how things were between us before the Holocaust, things are definitely different now. The fact is that ever since I joined Galactica's crew, Kara has not been much of a friend and has frequently made my life harder while _never_ making it easier. She has in fact been less cooperative and less supportive than all of my other pilots combined. I've served in many different postings, with many different people. I've seen teammates who were the best of friends and others who in the off-time wouldn't give each other the time of day. But I have NEVER seen ANYONE send a comrade-in-arms off to combat with a derisive sneer and the words, "Don't frak it up." You say, "Good hunting." "Good Luck." "Give 'em hell." Kara couldn't _wouldn't _offer me even that. Am I being unreasonable? She's pissed about having to sit this one out because of her bum knee. Fine. But is it really too much to expect that a _longtime friend _will at the very least extend to me what is regarded as common _professional _courtesy? Or should I just give up altogether on including Kara and the words "professional" or "friend" in the same train of thought? Maybe it's time I accepted the wakeup call.

My entire career... hell, my whole life I've had to prove myself to everyone, everywhere I went. Teachers, coaches, commanders, my peers... everyone always assumes that being "Husker's Kid" means that I've never had to earn my way. They think I'm always being given preferential treatment solely because of who my father is. BULLSHIT! Everyone tries so hard NOT to allow me special treatment that I've always ended up working twice as hard just to get the same level of respect. But I do it. Time and time again, I've proven my naysayers wrong. Galactica's turned out to be no different. I didn't want this job. It was tossed into my lap out of pure necessity, but I've busted my ass to get up to speed on it, and I've gotten the job done, damn it! But, here we go again. The big op rolls around and no one, not even my so-called best friend and my father, think that I'm really up to it. From the rest of the crew, it really doesn't surprise me. It ticks me off, but the fact is they really don't know me yet. But getting this crap from my family? What cause have I ever given _them _to have so little faith in me? They should know me better than to doubt me so easily.

I have to give Dad credit for at least _pretending _to be supportive, but giving me Granddad's lucky lighter for the trip was a dead giveaway. He told me that he believes I can do the job, but when I asked him why, he blew his cover again. "Because you're my son," he said. It wasn't because I'm a good pilot, or because of the job I've done for him so far. No, it's just because I'm his son. Unfortunately, both he and I know damn well that he has no right to take any credit for whatever I am today. Mom raised me, he didn't. Whatever I've accomplished, I did it _without _him, and being his son has been a hindrance to my career, not a help. Well, at least he made the _effort _to be fatherly, for a change. That in itself was comforting, but tomorrow I still have to prove myself to him as much as to anyone else.

Tomorrow. No... not tomorrow. Today. It all happens today. I have just a few more hours in fact before assembling Group 2 for deployment inside the decoy freighter. Then we wait, and wait, and wait, until all hell breaks loose. Gods willing, this trip to hell won't be one-way.


	13. Day 38 still

Setting: Just after the events in "The Hand of God".  
Spoilers: Up through episode 1.10.

----------------------------------------

Day 38 - still

Round-trip completed. Mission accomplished.

Casualties minimal. Thank the Gods.

We lost 5 pilots, far fewer than I'd even dared to hope. We'll be eulogizing them tomorrow. Tonight, I'm just letting the survivors celebrate. They earned it.

Kara's loony plan actually worked... _mostly_. At first, it looked pretty grim. The Cylon base had many more Raiders than we'd anticipated. It could have been an absolute disaster. The assault on the base was more complicated than we'd expected, delaying Group 2's departure from the asteroid. That left the 12 vipers in Group 1 facing off against 140 Raiders, with no chance that Group 2 could join them in time to assist. Fortunately, we were handed a miracle. As soon as the base was blown to hell, the Raiders just abandoned their attack and fled. I guess they figured they had nothing left to defend, so why bother? We got lucky. _Very _lucky. If they'd decided to put up a fight and gain back a little retribution, I shudder to think what would have happened.

Okay, time for a little self-admission. I was scared today, and not just for the safety of my pilots, but for myself too. There, I said it. It's after the fact, so I can acknowledge it now. Part of what scared me most was that I actually pulled a "Starbuck" in order to take out that refinery. Gods, Kara is rubbing off on me. At least it wiped that gloating "I-could-do-this-better-than-you" smirk off her face that she's been wearing for the last couple of days. She even managed to sound reasonably gracious when she met me on the flight deck with a celebratory cigar.

Frak it. What is it about her that I just can't stay mad at her? I want to. I should. She deserves it. But damn it, I can't. Am I a glutton for punishment? Or have I known her long enough to recognize that she's _always _been full of crap and I shouldn't take it seriously? Do I dare hope that she learned a lesson today, and she'll start showing me a little professional respect? I guess we'll see. I'll cut her a break for now, but I am done putting up with her shit. No more freebies.

I thought the post-battle rush would last a little longer, but I'm heading for a crash pretty quickly now, so this will be a short entry today. I'm long overdue for a little rack time.

One last comment. Just like I promised, Dad DID get his lighter back.


	14. Day 46

Setting: Mid-way through the events in "Colonial Day".  
Spoilers: Up through episode 1.11.

-------------------------------------

Day 46

I may have made a big mistake. About 5 weeks ago when I cut a deal with Tom Zarek to bring about an end to the hostage crisis on the _Astral Queen_, I thought that I really hadn't conceded much to him in the bargain, other than allowing him and the other prisoners to move about freely within the confines of their own ship. What I didn't realize was how close Tom Zarek was to completing his sentenced prison term. It was my idea to offer freedom points to the prisoners who volunteered for the water detail, shortening their sentences in return for their services. Tom Zarek's participation in the work detail earned him enough points to buy him an early release. His sentence has now been fully served. He's a free man -- thanks to me. Nice job Lee. Now I wonder if I should have shot him in the head when I had the chance.

Tom has been far from idle during his new-found freedom. As the de facto commander of the _Astral Queen_, he's actually taken a cue from Dad and turned the population of prisoners into a one-stop labor shop -- general contractors to the fleet.

_-Need a few hands to clean out the bilge?  
-Having trouble with your air filters?  
-Who you gonna call?  
-- Call Tom Zarek!  
--- Up to 1,500 workers available. No job too demeaning. Open 24 hours, including weekends and holidays, for all your cheap labor needs._

He's a canny bastard, I'll give him that. Overseeing the various work details has given him high visibility and the opportunity to ingratiate himself to overworked crews all over the fleet. I didn't realize it... and neither did President Roslin for that matter... but he's actually been cunningly campaigning for political office. Yesterday he was selected as the Sagitarron representative to the Quorum of Twelve. Gods help us. We now have a terrorist on our ruling council. Gods help us even more, that terrorist has wangled himself a nomination for the office of Vice President. If he wins the vote, and something happens to President Roslin (and given her current _situation_, that likelihood is frighteningly real) Tom Zarek will be given control of the government.

I wonder how Dad would deal with that turn of events. If he has issues seeing eye-to-eye with the current administration, how the hell would he deal with Zarek as Chief Executive, not to mention as Commander-in-Chief? Dad swore an oath when he entered the military to defend the Articles of Colonization, which by definition must include the government established by the Articles. I cringe to think of "President Zarek", but if he achieves that post by the will of the people, then we in the military will have no choice but to live with it, like it or not. But would Dad agree? What's the alternative? _Dictator _Adama? This is suddenly a very frightening thought. I'm really starting to wonder if Dad would try to declare martial law. It's difficult to conceive that Dad might stoop to committing a military coup and overthrowing the legal government because he doesn't like the person in charge... but if Zarek were involved, I think he just might.

I'm putting the cart before the horse here. Zarek isn't Vice President yet, let alone President. President Roslin has persuaded Wallace Gray to jump into the fray. He's been her right hand and go-to man since we fled the colonies, and he has a well-respected reputation in the fleet. To my mind, he's the logical choice for the job, but politics rarely adhere to logic. My concern is primarily that while is Gray is efficient, knowledgeable, and trustworthy, he isn't very charismatic and his speeches tend to put people to sleep. Zarek on the other hand is a natural, passionate orator with loads of charisma, and that tends to leave people with a favorable impression, even if in truth you can't trust him farther than you can throw him. This could be a very close vote. We'll know in a couple more days.

The security on board _Cloud Nine_ has me worried too. Kara and I have been pulled off the CAP to oversee the security details, but for the most part we're both winging it, running mostly off of common sense rather than any real experience. Let's face it; we're pilots, not Secret Service. _Cloud Nine_ already had its own minimal security team, but they were trained to deal primarily with drunks and pickpockets during a tourist cruise. Spies and assassins are a little out of their league. Galactica's few remaining marines have all been reassigned to _Cloud Nine_ for the duration of the conference, but their numbers are still too few, even to my untrained eye, and in the end they serve more as a visual deterrent than a functional one.

What worries me most is that President Roslin has no security detail of her own. She is relying entirely on the temporary assignment of military personnel for her protection. The marines assigned to her will do all they can, without a doubt, but in the end their loyalty is to the Commander, not to the President. She shouldn't have to rely on my father's willingness to comply.

What she really needs is a civilian security force that answers to her and to her alone. I've mentioned the subject to her before, and she's in agreement that a true Secret Service should be reestablished, but little action has yet been taken to implement it. I can see now that it's high time I really got moving. I've already interviewed a few civilians scattered around the fleet who were previously trained in security measures: private security, former municipal police, etc. I should really have put more effort into this before now, but hopefully I can find the time in the next few days to finally put a team together. The sooner, the better.

We actually had one minor incident already this morning. One ruffian got the notion in his head that his right of free expression includes intimidating and squelching other people's free expression. Not too surprisingly, he turned out to be one of Tom Zarek's supporters. They say you can always tell a lot about a man by looking at his friends.

Speaking of friends... Kara's actually been behaving herself for the last several days, so long as I remember to keep her out of reach of any garden hoses. And even Ellen Tigh has been conducting herself with a reasonable level of dignity, though I'm still leery of standing within grabbing range. She seems to enjoy the attention that comes with being a conference VIP, representing Galactica along with Colonel Tigh. I'm not surprised that Dad ducked out of this duty and tagged Saul with it. Saul wasn't happy about it, but Dad absolutely _despises_ pomp and politics. I think he'd rather undergo four days of prostate exams than stand in a receiving line, forcing smiles, and shaking hands with political hobnobbers. I just hope Saul can avoid the sauce and Ellen doesn't pull anything to make us all regret her presence here.

The one thing I really can't get my head around is the fact that Gaius Baltar was elected as the Caprican delegate to the Quorum. Gaius Baltar? Sure, the guy's a genius, and his scientific intellect has been invaluable to us. But the man is also a bit of a loon. I've never seen anyone handle stress so poorly. He gets rattled at the drop of a pin, and spends more time talking to himself than to anyone else. Kara thinks I'm just jealous because he's a better card player than I am, but I've never been spotted in the hallways ranting at the bulkheads either. How is he supposed to represent the will of the people and look out for our communal benefit when he half-lives in his own imaginary world?

A terrorist and a mad scientist. These are now among the leaders of our government. Gods help us.


	15. Day 50

Setting: Early in the events of "Kobol's Last Gleaming".  
Spoilers: Up through episode 1.11.

--------------------------------------

Day 50

The more things change, the more they stay the same. It's a cliché, but it's true. We have a new Vice President... Gaius Baltar of all people... and Kara is already frakking him.

_Vice President_ Gaius Baltar. I couldn't quite believe it when President Roslin announced that Doctor Baltar was stepping up as a nominee, replacing Wallace Gray. Gray started off with a clear advantage in the vote count a few days ago, but as Zarek worked the room and pressed the flesh the votes began turning against Gray. Officially, Gray dropped out of the race for health reasons, but I know it was actually the President's choice. I _know_ that she doesn't really believe that Doctor Baltar is the right person for the job, but for some reason she believed that he stood the best chance of beating Tom Zarek in the vote. I must admit that Baltar is pretty adept at shoveling it thick for the press; he's good enough that with very little time to campaign he still managed to tie Zarek in the vote by the Quorum. That left the final choice to President Roslin and essentially it was a choice between the lesser of two evils. So, we've got a wack job instead of a terrorist for a V.P.

At least I don't have to fear any imminent threat to the President's life any longer. Thwarted by the vote, Zarek is in no position to ascend to the throne, so I don't think he'll bother sending another assassin after her. I wish I knew who the frak managed to kill Valance before he could finger Zarek in a murder conspiracy against the President. I feel it in my gut that Zarek is dirty, but the fact that we had a security leak amongst the military is just as troubling. It's the military that has been protecting the President, but we apparently have a traitor among us. Fortunately, as of yesterday, I managed to finish pulling together a civilian security team that will be accountable to the President alone. She no longer has to rely on the courtesy of the military for her protection. They're a very good team and I feel confident they'll defend her with their lives if necessary.

If only the President wasn't facing _that other threat_. I've been afraid to ask her how things are proceeding on that issue, and she hasn't volunteered her status to me for several weeks. She still appears as strong and vital as the day I met her. Hopefully that's a good sign. We need her leadership so desperately.

I can't begin to imagine what the alternative might mean for all of us. The President may have a legal successor now, but I don't believe for one minute that Baltar is qualified to be the potential leader of the human race. If she is forced to step down before the election because of her _circumstances_, he'll be next to useless... except when it comes to pressing the flesh. Apparently he's very _adept_ at that... or at least adept enough to get into Kara's pants... not that that's a unique accomplishment by any means.

Kara. Just when I've really started to believe that she's straightened out her act, she proves me wrong. She hasn't changed after all. She may have been willing to "clean up" enough to wear a dress for the first time in her life, but that didn't turn her into a lady. She looked gorgeous at the Colonial Day festival last night, but I was a total fool to think for one minute that it meant anything at all except that she was scoping for an easy frak-target... and the new VP was more than willing to step up and _press the flesh_.

It really is just like old times. I should have known better. She couldn't even be faithful to Zak and she was "in love" with him. Why should I start to think that she'd keep her pants zipped now? Still, I'm very disappointed in her. Maybe that's why I just blew up on her down on the flight deck. Maybe I was out of line confronting her as roughly as I did... and doing it _where_ I did. The deck crew didn't need to witness that, and after all, she's never tried to pretend that she's changed her ways. She hasn't made any commitment to anyone, certainly not to _me_. So if I was really starting to think better of her, it really is my own damn fault. She's free to frak whoever she wants... and I have to just accept that she will.

But, _Gaius Baltar_ of all people? I _really_ thought better of her than that. It isn't just grossly unprofessional; it's just plain gross.


	16. Back Home

(Setting: shortly after the events in "Home-Part 2"  
Spoilers: up through episode 2.07)

Back Home

I'm home. Who would've ever thought a few months ago that I would consider Galactica _home_? It's an obsolete, beat up, tin can floating through uncharted space. I dreaded setting foot here the first time I came. I resented having to come here at all. But now it actually is home, and I'm glad to be back.

It's been a while since I've had a chance to just sit down and record my thoughts on recent events. It's been a while since I've even had access to my journal. More than 2 weeks have passed since Colonial Day, but in many ways it feels more like months. So much has happened. I hardly know where to begin.

Kobol is as good a place to start as any. The discovery of the ancient birthplace of humanity is just about where I left off and where all the recent madness started. I've never been a religious man nor certainly any scholar of the scriptures. But I remember the stories I heard in my childhood about the paradise where the Gods and Humanity lived together in harmony, until the dark times that led to the exodus and the founding of the twelve colonies. Through history and science there's never been a question that Kobol existed and that it was the birthplace of humankind, despite the fact that the actual location of Kobol was lost from the historical records many hundreds of years ago. But there's been plenty of debate over the centuries about the nature of the Gods. What and who were they really? Did they even ever actually exist? Were they genuine deities or just the royalty of the times, endowed with divine powers in the minds of a superstitious population? Believers and skeptics have been debating these questions for centuries.

I've always been rather agnostic on the subject myself. I guess I'm driven more by reason and science than by faith. I can't buy into a fantastical idea just because someone else believes it. I'm persuaded by evidence and scientific fact. Of course I sometimes envy people of faith. It would be nice to believe that there is some divine power watching over us and I have seen people draw true strength and comfort from prayer.So in my heart I'm not opposed to the idea that it _could _be true But if the Gods are real… and they are watching over us… how could the Holocaust have taken place? I suppose that it comes down to the fact that I've never seen a divine hand at work in my own life, not even back before the Holocaust, so I've never bothered to give the gods much thought one way or the other.

It tends to be during times like these… times of great turmoil and suffering… when people suddenly find religion. There does seem to be a strong push toward spirituality in the fleet these days and that's true for no one more so than President Roslin. In fact, she's done a lot more than just find religion. She's become a _part_ of the religion. She's become a self-proclaimed prophet. She claims to have visions, and I can't deny that they appear to have panned out as she predicted, but I'm still uncomfortable with the degree to which she's taken it all. It was her new-found piety and belief in herself as a figure out of the ancient scriptures that was the catalyst for some pretty traumatic events lately. Or… maybe it was just her stubbornness going head-to-head with Dad's and their mutual petty rivalry that caused it all.

Dad had a very good reason to be angry with her. We had people stranded on Kobol, awaiting rescue and in imminent danger from Cylon forces. Kara and her pet Raider were going to be a vital element in enabling a rescue for our crewmates. The President knew this. But she still went behind Dad's back and persuaded Kara to ditch out of her mission, abandon our stranded crewmates, and go artifact hunting back on Caprica instead. Dad became totally unhinged over it all and I felt like smacking the President upside the head myself, but I was still surprised when he ordered the marines to invade Colonial One and place the President under arrest. He was pissed as hell. I get it. So was I, but cripes, that's no justification for treason. There are legal ways of removing an unfit President from office. He could have called for an emergency gathering of the Quorum of Twelve and made his case to them. They could have voted to remove her if they agreed it was necessary. I'm sure Tom Zarek would have been happy to oblige and initiate the gathering if Dad had requested it, but Dad never even attempted to pursue legal means. He just embarked straight into a military coup.

Dad has served the colonies as an officer of the Colonial Fleet for almost as many years as I've been alive. He swore an oath… as we all did when we joined the military… to defend the Articles of Colonization, which includes by definition the government established in the Articles. That oath is held as sacred and one which we all swear to fulfill at the cost of our very lives if necessary. I still can't understand how Dad could abandon his sworn service so easily and resort to _treason_. What the President did was underhanded, but what Dad did was criminal.

I guess I do need to step off my soapbox for a minute and admit that I almost went along with Dad's coup. I was just as angry as Dad when Kara betrayed us and we learned that the President was behind it… all because of some vision and a few words from the ancient Pythian prophecies. In spite of my anger though, I did have immediate reservations about sending troops to Colonial One over something that was only worthy of a tongue lashing and some public humiliation in the press. But I didn't speak up at first. I held my tongue and followed Dad's orders to accompany the boarding party to Colonial One.

I should have said something before we ever left Galactica. I knew that what we were doing was wrong. I knew it was treason. But I've seen Dad in moods like that before. When he gets that way, there's no reasoning with him and he's a very daunting man to stand up to. I would dare to say that until that day no one on Galactica had ever defied one of Dad's orders before. I've been butting heads with him intermittently my whole life, but it's a very different thing to defy your father over curfew hours on Friday night than it is to refuse an order given by your commanding officer during wartime, especially when that commander is someone you love and respect… and whose love and respect in return is something you don't want to lose.

I knew that Dad would take it personally if I objected. He's been touchy all along about my job as one of the President's advisors. When I first accepted the position, Dad tried to tell me that I had to pick a side, as though it was some kind of contest between him and Laura Roslin. I think he might have even sent me with the marines to arrest her as a way of choosing my side for me and reminding me that my responsibilities were to Galactica first. But when we arrived at the President's office on Colonial One… and ended up in an armed standoff between Galactica's marines and the President's personal security team… a team that _I_ hand-picked myself… the insanity of it all just overwhelmed me. I looked at Laura Roslin and I didn't see any dangerous enemy of the people. I just saw a woman whom I respected, whose job performance I had admired up until then, who happened to have just made one boneheaded maneuver. I saw the legal President of the 12 Colonies under armed assault by hostile forces, and it was my duty to act in her defense. It was my duty to abide by my oath and defend the Articles of Colonization. The fact is that Dad's orders were illegal. It was the duty of every sworn member of the military to refuse to obey those orders. So that was what I did… or tried to do, anyway. I drew my weapon and attempted to defend the President. I wasn't choosing between my father and Laura Roslin. I was doing my sworn duty as an officer of the Colonial Fleet.

I still don't quite understand why the President suddenly folded then. She refused to step down when Dad first demanded it. She refused again when we arrived with the marines. She was standing her ground. But as soon as I moved to back her up, in defiance of my own shipmates and my own father, she gave up. I put everything on the line to defend her rightful presidency, and she didn't back my play. It was _her_ fight, but she threw it in and we were both placed under arrest and taken under guard back to Galactica. If she didn't mean to go through with it and hold her ground, why did she bother initiating the whole standoff in the first place? Maybe it was the insanity of seeing allies pointing guns at each other that changed her mind. Whatever the reason, she was taken to the brig and I was taken to CIC to be paraded in front of the crew with my hands tied as an example to anyone else who might consider defying Dictator Adama.

I knew Dad would take it personally, and he proved me right. When he walked into CIC, he gave me _The Look._ As a boy, that expression used to send me running to my room in fear. This time though, it just confirmed for me that my efforts had been totally wasted. I didn't regret my decision. I still don't. I knew that I had done the right thing, both legally and morally… but it had all been for nothing. A military coup had just been successfully completed against our government, and the father whom I had only just begun to bring back into my life regarded me as a mutineer.

He's been disappointed in me my whole life for one reason or another and it never quite seems to matter how hard I work, or how well I do. If I'm not precisely following his footsteps, he just doesn't approve. Hell, I can't even spar correctly according to him, because I don't possess _his_ killer instinct to smash a family member in the face. So, defying his orders that day was just one more item on the long list of disappointments.

But why is it that Dad is always disappointed in me… but never finds any fault with Kara? It was her act of betrayal that caused this whole mess, but Dad didn't see it that way. In his eyes, it was all the President's fault. Kara was vilely manipulated, you see. Kara wasn't to blame. Kara doesn't do anything wrong. Oh never mind that she cheated on Zak and then lied to him about passing Basic Flight. Who cares if she falsified his performance records to get him into Viper training, where he died? It doesn't matter that she was breaking regulations by having an affair with Zak in the first place. Oh, and it really doesn't matter at all that she lied to me, and Dad, and Mom for 2 freaking years about why Zak died, in spite of the fact that she knew damn well her lies helped to break up our family and that her entire relationship with my father was based on false pretenses. But if Kara goes into a personal hissy fit over Dad's lie about Earth and she betrays us _all_ as a result of her own hurt feelings… well that isn't Kara's fault. It's the President's fault for telling Kara the truth. Sheesh!

So Dad lied about knowing where Earth is. Big deal. Broken promises from Dad are certainly nothing new to me, and I figured this particular one out on my own a long time ago.

"Earth's location is the most closely guarded secret we have, and it was entrusted only to the senior leaders of the fleet." Okay, even if such a secret ever really existed, Dad wouldn't have been in on it. He wasn't one of the senior leaders of the fleet. He was just one battlestar commander of many… commanding the _oldest_ and most _obsolete_ battlestar in the entire fleet. Galactica wasn't exactly regarded as a desirable post by anyone else but him. As a result, he was even the butt of jokes amongst the senior leaders and was passed over for promotion to Admiral several times. One old relic of the Cylon War in command of another; neither one able to adapt to new technologies or modern times and both had outlived their useful service and were being put out to pasture together. Of course, it did turn out that Dad's stubborn aversion to new technologies eventually saved the human race, but none of the fleet's former senior elite considered him a member of their inner circle and they would not have included him in any exclusive super-secret club.

"This great secret could not be revealed so long as the Cylon threat remained." Okay… so… Dad goes and blabs about this great, guarded secret to the entire fleet even while simultaneously knowing damn well that not only does the Cylon threat remain, but they look like us and have agents hiding among us. Yep. What an ingenious technique for keeping a great secret from the enemy! Announce it in public when you know the enemy is listening.

1 + 2 Dad was lying his ass off. This is isn't higher math.

I don't blame him for the lie. I understand why he did it. Our people needed to have something specific to look forward to in order to hold on to hope. He gave them that. What I don't understand is why Kara took it like a _personal_ insult, especially considering her own long track record of dishonesty. But then again, that's typical Kara. She'll walk all over people without a second thought, including those she calls friends, but dare to even step on one of her toes by mistake and she'll throw a conniption while playing the horribly wounded victim.

I almost didn't expect to see Kara again after she jumped away in the Raider. I honestly didn't have much hope that she'd ever escape from Caprica. But she not only escaped with the Arrow of Apollo in hand, she brought _friends_ back with her. Lt Karl Agathon, Helo, Boomer's former partner. And another Boomer. A pregnant one this time. Pregnant by Helo.

Boomer.

Gods…this is a difficult matter to think about.

Dad told us several weeks ago that we had at least one Cylon agent hiding out on Galactica. This traitor destroyed our water tanks and helped another Cylon suicide bomber gain access to the ship. All department heads were told to keep an eye out on our people. I blew it. The Cylon turned out to be one of _my_ people. One of my own pilots. And I never saw it.

I trusted Boomer completely. She helped to gather our fleet together on Holocaust Day. I've flown with her in combat. She's the one who found water for the fleet after the tanks were blown apart… after _she_ blew the tanks apart, that is. She found the Cylon tylium refinery when the fleet was damn near out of gas. She's even the one who found Kobol. I never _never_ suspected that she was the hidden enemy among us. I guess I'm not alone in that. No one suspected, including Dad. He chose her to carry out Kara's mission to blow up the Cylon basehip over Kobol after Kara deserted us. And Boomer did it. She actually did nuke the baseship. Then she came home to congratulations and praise, shook my father's hand, and shot him point-blank in the chest. Twice.

It's really tough to think about this. The memories are so crystal-clear in my head. It almost seems like I remember seeing it all happening in slow motion. I can remember the sound of the gunshots. I can even remember the smell. The powder smoke in the air. The smell of blood. There was _so_ much blood. I thought for sure Dad was going to die. I could have throttled Colonel Tigh for not allowing me to go with Dad to sickbay. Even after Saul allowed me to leave the brig to perform my duties as CAG, I still wasn't allowed to visit with Dad off-duty. I had to just go straight back to the brig.

Thank the Gods for Dee. She became my only lifeline to my father. She met up with me every morning and every evening on my way to and from the brig to let me know how Dad was doing and keep me informed of any other important news that the Colonel wouldn't bother to tell me. I would never have known about the protests in the fleet against martial law or about the deaths of unarmed civilians on the Gideon if Dee hadn't told me. And I would never have been able to get the President off of Galactica and into safe hiding without Dee's help. It's kind of strange. When Kara bolted, I thought I'd lost my one and only friend. But if she hadn't bolted, I might not have found out what a damn good friend I have in Dee. She really was a godsend during the darkest days of my life when I had absolutely no one else.

Perhaps most importantly, Dee was there for my father when I couldn't be, both before I escaped from Galactica with the President and after. I'll always owe her for that. I've said before that I don't regret my decision to oppose the coup and I don't regret opposing the state of martial law in the fleet. But I do regret that I wasn't there to help my father through any of his recovery. He almost died twice on the operating table and I wasn't there for him. I wasn't there at his bedside when he woke up, or on hand to help him while he was trying to get his strength back. I found out recently that he had to ask the marine guards to help steady him when he took his first steps out of bed, because no one else was there. I wish _I_ had been there. He healed up and was back on the job remarkably quickly. Like the President said, he's a tough old bird. But I know that when he woke up and found out that I was gone… with the President… that he felt I'd betrayed him again. What I did wasn't about _him and me_, but I know that's how it seemed to him and I'll always regret that I wasn't a better son at a time when he needed family around him the most.

Instead of helping my father recover from a near-fatal shooting, I was tromping around on the surface of the re-discovered planet Kobol, looking for the tomb of Athena with another Sharon-model Cylon as our guide. I know this particular copy wasn't the same one who shot Dad, but when I first saw her I was filled with a rage unlike anything I'd ever felt in my life. I could have killed her in cold blood with no remorse at all. She reportedly helped Helo and Kara escape from Caprica, and I don't know that we would have found the tomb of Athena without her help, but I can still barely stand to look at her. She has all of Boomer's memories, even including her love affair with the Chief. On one hand, she wants us all to accept her as the Sharon we all knew and trusted, the Sharon who served faithfully on board Galactica. But at the same time she also declares, "It wasn't me, it wasn't me!" when she is confronted with my father's attempted murder. Well is it her, or not? Is she Sharon Valerii or not? Sharon was a traitor and an assassin. This one may be a separate copy, but she has the same mindset and history as the other one, and I don't trust her. She claims she has no hidden programming and she is helping us out of her own free will, but I don't fully believe her. How can she know that she doesn't have hidden programming? Isn't that the definition of "hidden"? And in spite of her infatuation with Helo, she hasn't shown any love for the human race or any remorse for the annihilation of the colonies. Her loyalty isn't with humanity. Her only loyalties are with herself, Helo, and their unborn child. So what happens if Helo develops a wandering eye and cheats on her? Will she bring down the Cylon fleet on our heads in retaliation?

And what about this baby of hers, a human-Cylon hybrid that was the product of Cylon experiments intended to bring them closer to their God? Human men and women are being held captive on the colonies and used as lab rats in their breeding experiments to mass produce these hybrid children. Apparently, in spite of their human appearance, the Cylons can't reproduce naturally amongst themselves. If Sharon's child is a part of the Cylons' ultimate plan, then giving her asylum in the fleet could be a huge mistake. A successful birth of this child could only encourage the further rape of our brothers and sisters that we had to leave behind. The decision certainly isn't up to me, but if it were, I'd follow the President's initial inclinations and send her out of an airlock.

I suppose I need to acknowledge that the child isn't Sharon's alone. It's Helo's child too. If I could be objective… which is pretty damn hard… I'd have to admit that Helo has rights as the child's father, even if Cylon-Sharon doesn't. She's a machine, but he isn't. I don't understand how he can be so thoroughly deluded by her and actually love someone who applauds the slaughter of billions. He didn't know she was a Cylon when he fell for her, any more than the Chief did, so I can't blame him for falling in love, but… I would have thought that learning your girlfriend is a willing accomplice to genocide would be kind a deal-breaker. Maybe he feels obligated because of the baby and just wants to do right by the child. If that's the case, then I can't fault him. It's a more honorable reaction than… than the one that I had. I feel sorry for him though. I just can't conceive of how this can possibly work out well for him.

Kara doesn't seem as bothered by it all as I am. She didn't object when the President almost put Sharon out the airlock, but she doesn't have any issues with Helo. She's known him a lot longer than I have, so I guess it's a lot easier for her to be sympathetic with the guy. But it's also a little disappointing for me to see it. She can offer Helo sympathy for loving one Cylon-Sharon, but she can't sympathize with me with for almost losing my father to another Cylon-Sharon. I thought she loved the Old Man, and she makes a decent pretense of it sometimes, but she still doesn't show any remorse for what she did to him or for any of the subsequent consequences that her actions set in motion. Once again, Kara shows that she has very little sense of responsibility and when faced with criticism for her actions, she plays the victim and goes on the offensive instead of acknowledging her own faults. But why am I surprised at this? It's what she's always done. It's what she'll always do. Why do I keep hoping she'll change?

I know that seeing Caprica as a nuclear wasteland was difficult for her. And something else happened back there that she doesn't seem ready to talk about yet. She's having a hard time dealing with it and she's never been adept at sharing her feelings. I've offered my support and told her that I'll be there for her when she's ready. There's nothing more I can do, but you know it would also really be nice if she could reciprocate once in a while. Just _once _even In spite of what she seems to think, she's not the only one who's been through hell lately. But in the end, she made it back safely and that's really all that matters for now. We can work on straightening out the rest as we go along.

And thank the Gods that I still have the chance to work things out with Dad. He forgave the President for going behind his back and he's rescinded martial law. The President and the Quorum have been restored to power with his full support. Dictator Adama surrendered his crown. He's reinstated me as CAG, and I'm not facing any charges for mutiny. But then again he's not facing any charges for treason, so I guess we're even.

I have no idea what changed it around for him. I don't know why he decided to come back for us at Kobol and reunite the fleet. Maybe he just needed time to simmer down before he realized that he'd made a huge error in judgment. In any case, he did acknowledge his mistake and he did what he had to do to bring us all together again. And he seems to have forgiven me for "betraying" him. We haven't actually talked about it yet. I tried to broach the subject with him while we were on Kobol, but some things never change. "Let's just save this for another time, son." Again. One of these days we're going to have to actually talk to each other, and if we try to include all the conversations that we've been putting off over the years, we'll be going at it for weeks.

But… I'm home again. Back on Galactica. As the President predicted, the tomb of Athena (whoever or whatever she was) did include a map to Earth. Well, a map of sorts. It didn't exactly give us a course setting or tell us when to turn left in order to find the parking lot for Earth-orbit, but it's given us a place to start. Astral body M8, also called the Lagoon Nebula. We're on our way there now. It'll be a long journey to get there, but once we do we should be able to use the rest of the star patterns found in the tomb to calculate Earth's location. Then, hopefully, we'll find the not-so-mythical home of the 13th Tribe.

And just maybe it will be a place that we can call home too.


	17. Day 81

Setting: shortly after the events in "Final Cut"  
Spoilers: up through episode 2.08

-------------------------------------

Day 81

My pilots are starting to come apart. Though I'm grateful that we've had no major meltdowns before now, frankly I'm surprised it's taken this long. We've all been going at it non-stop for months now, and there's no end in sight. We're pulling 15-hour duty shifts and there are no relief troops on the way. We've had no suicides yet, but I don't know for how much longer I'll be able to say that.

When I first took command of the air group I swore that I wouldn't lose any of my pilots to suicide, but now I think I was being naive. Fighter pilots tend to be a pretty stoic bunch who don't readily spill their guts and talk about their feelings. They complain and bitch, sure. There's plenty of that. But willingly admit that you're having a tough time and struggling to get through the day? Not likely. I've tried to let everyone know that I'm willing to listen to anyone at any time, but I've never once had a pilot come up to me and say, "Hey Captain… can we talk? I really need a sympathetic ear right now." Frankly if any of them really did say that to me, my first assumption would be that they were frakking around. I've tried to be the one who takes the initiative and approaches them if it looks like they're struggling, but sometimes it's hard to tell who is really on the edge and who is just having a bad day. And let's face it, sometimes it's hard enough for me to just keep my own head above water.

I have to admit that Kat was definitely showing the warning signs. I should have seen that one coming. The mood swings were pretty apparent, and that's a classic sign of stim abuse. She was irritable and short-tempered one minute, then giddy and hyper the next. Kara said she's been acting up and pissing her off all week. On that count I have to consider the source a bit. Kara always feels entitled to _be_ the one acting up and mouthing off, but she can't handle even the slightest bit of the same behavior when it's directed back at her. It's no real wonder to me that the student is emulating the teacher, so I didn't take Kara's gripes about Kat very seriously. Kat is spirited and a little cocksure (like Kara!), but she's always been considerate of her team and behaved like a professional toward me (unlike Kara!). When she gleefully mooned the news cameras though, that wasn't exactly her typical behavior and I should have noted that fact. Fortunately she didn't suffer any permanent damage from the stim overdose, and Doc Cottle expects she'll be cleared for flight in about a week. I'll have to keep an eye out for her. Kat's become quite an ace in the cockpit. Next to Kara, she's my top flier. I need her back on the job, but I need her healthy first.

Hammerhead was a tougher call. I didn't see that one at all. His experience on the Gideon would have rattled anybody and I of all people know how it can eat away at you to feel responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians. I have hundreds of such deaths on my head. I never saw the faces of anyone on the Olympic Carrier, but I still had flashbacks and nightmares over it for weeks. Palladino saw it all firsthand. He was standing in the midst of the crowd that day when the civilians were killed. The situation was a frakup by Colonel Tigh, caused by his declaration of martial law and his inability to deal with the consequences. But it was Hammerhead, and the marines he commanded, who were actually in the thick of it. _They_ are the ones who suffered the brunt and trauma of that event, not Saul Tigh. Palladino kept it all entirely under wraps though. He kept all signs of acute stress completely hidden. Come to think of it, I managed to mask my own acute stress symptoms after the Olympic Carrier too. No one ever knew that I was having flashbacks. After my own experience, I should have anticipated the effects that something like the Gideon incident could have had on the people involved. I should have been more proactive and tried to make sure that Hammerhead was all right. Unfortunately, my escape to Kobol with President Roslin followed right on the heels of the events on the Gideon, and as a result I wasn't paying attention to the well-being of my pilots. I'm ashamed to admit that I completely dropped the ball. I need to do better by the people under my command.

No one has faced any disciplinary action at all for what happened on the Gideon. Dad explained that our resources are stretched too thin for us to punish people for making mistakes just to appease public opinion. In his opinion, no one is "getting away" with anything. Everyone involved has to live with what happened. I can understand that argument to a degree, but the fact is that are some people who _can't_ live with what happened – _the civilians who__died_. What happened on the Gideon was a tragic accident, but it's my experience that accidents don't _just_ _happen_; they are _caused_. There was a breakdown, either in command or execution. That breakdown needs to be addressed and something needs to be done to make sure it doesn't happen again.

It would also be a huge mistake to think that all civil unrest in the fleet as been resolved. We have a long journey ahead of us to the Lagoon Nebula. Even when we get there, it could be a great deal farther still to travel to Earth once we've plotted the course. Supply shortages should be considered inevitable. Panic and protests WILL happen again. We need to be prepared to deal with it without resorting to bloodshed, but so far nothing is being done in that regard. Dad and the President may think that this recent news report compiled and broadcast by D'Anna Biers will unruffle a few feathers in the fleet… and it may _help_… but it won't last long once a new crisis sets in… and another crisis _will_ set it one of these days.

Even if the solution is as simple as increasing awareness and training amongst our troops, the event on the Gideon should never have been just swept under the rug. Reparations, or at least a formal apology, should have been made to the families of the victims. The citizens of our fleet need to know that they can trust us. Shooting them down, then ignoring the consequences, including the pain and the grief that we caused, is not the way to achieve unity in the fleet. After the coup, the people were distrustful enough. If the military continues to separate itself from the people and avoid any accountability for our actions, the level of distrust will only get worse. These are desperate times and we are desperately short on trained, qualified people, but now more than ever we have to maintain a sense of responsibility and adherence to the law. The alternative is anarchy… and if we just abandon our core sense of decency then we'll have proved ourselves no better than our mortal enemy. What would be the point then of fleeing from the Cylons if we're no better than they are? It's hard enough to get up some days knowing that the fight is far from over, but if there wasn't even a reason to fight anymore… maybe we'd all do just as well to swallow a bullet.

There is another factor to consider. Before military personnel are assigned for duty aboard a battlestar we have to pass strict psychological evaluations that try to weed out individuals who would have difficulty living for long periods of time cooped up inside of a tin can that spends months on end in an environment that is hostile to human life. Some people just can't take it. Without blue skies overhead, the wind in their faces, and access to open spaces once in a while, some people just go nuts. All of us on Galactica have passed these tests, but the huge majority of the civilians in the fleet never faced any such screening. And those of us in the military have our limits too. Battlestars typically only remain on duty in space for about 3 to 4 months at a time, during peacetime of course, before returning to station and allowing shore leave for the crew. We're fast approaching that time period now, after which we'll have all reached a point beyond which any of us have ever spent continuously in space. We will undoubtedly begin to have increasing numbers of people, military and civilian alike, who just can't take being confined onboard a spaceship any longer without suffering psychological illness.

The time that I spent on Kobol wasn't exactly a vacation (Cylon attacks, booby traps, etc) but I have to admit that there were times I genuinely enjoyed having fresh air to breath. It was even pleasant to feel the rain falling on my face. For all of Zeus' curse to anyone who dared to return to Kobol, it was a beautiful place and it was at times very rejuvenating to hike through those mountains and green meadows. Tyrol mentioned to me that he loved hearing the sounds of birds again, and that too was something that I hadn't even realized how much I had missed. If not for the lingering threat of Cylon attacks, I would have liked to have even stayed a little longer. It's rather a pity that we couldn't have considered re-colonizing our ancient homeworld. But Kobol did help show us the way to Earth and that at least gives me hope that we do still have something worthwhile to fight for.


	18. Day 85

Setting: Early in the events of "Flight of the Phoenix" 

Day 85

Cally was sprung from the brig today.

I haven't really said anything before about how she killed Boomer. It's a difficult subject, and I must admit to having conflicting ideas about it. My head and my heart are rarely on opposing sides, but _this_ is one of those rare cases.

If we were to grant Cylons recognition as "people" then what Cally did would have to be classified as first-degree murder. She shot Boomer in the abdomen at point-blank range. It was premeditated. It was fully intentional. However, she wasn't charged with anything more than reckless discharge of a firearm. Kara actually faced more serious charges when she punched Colonel Tigh, though she was released after just a few hours. Cally received 30 days in the brig. She never even faced a military tribunal. The decision was entirely my father's and Cally pleaded 'No contest'. Why wouldn't she? It was an incredibly generous offer.

Dad said his decision was based upon the same logic that he used in dealing with the aftermath of the shootings on the Gideon. He feels he knows Cally well enough to conclude that she is not a public menace, and she can better serve the ship and our fleet on the flight deck than she can behind bars. To him, public opinion or appearances are inconsequential. The greater good is what we have to concern ourselves with. To an extent he's right, but there's potential here to send a very bad message out to the crew, if not the fleet as a whole. Civilians are dead. Military personnel are punching and shooting each other. No one is being held accountable.Why? Because Dad likes Kara, Colonel Tigh, and Cally.

The message: If you're in good with the commander, you can get away with murder.

What happened to justice?

On the other hand, Boomer was a Cylon. She was an assassin. She sabotaged our water tanks, which led to riots within the fleet and the hostage crisis on the Astral Queen (where Cally was assaulted, shot, and almost raped). Boomer was an accomplice to a suicide bomber who killed 4 people and injured 13 more. And she pumped two bullets into my father's chest. Boomer was no friend to anyone on Galactica. She was a threat to the entire human race. She deserved her fate.

If truth be told, I sometimes envy Cally. More than once, since the day I watched my father being gunned down by someone I trusted, I have dreamed at night of doing exactly what Cally did. Each time I live it in my dreams…. pulling the trigger and watching Boomer die… I feel a sense of relief and elation. I was hiding out in the fleet with President Roslin when I heard the news about Boomer's death, and at the time I felt genuinely angry at Cally for robbing me of the opportunity for personal revenge.

When Sharon #2 arrived from Caprica with Kara and Helo, it felt for a minute like I would have my chance at retribution after all. I could have put a bullet through her brain with no remorse, despite knowing that she was not the actual being who shot my father. Sharon has been cooperative since she's been with us, but I still don't trust myself around her. In fact I've deliberately avoided her holding cell because I don't think I can look at her without wishing I could kill her. Dad thinks she may continue to be a valuable source of intelligence, so he wants to keep her around, but if it were up to me I'd still choose to put her out an airlock. I just don't trust her. She's cut from precisely the same mold as Boomer. They even share the same memories. Can they really be any different?

Boomer insisted that she had no knowledge of the Cylons that could be of any help to us. She only remembered the fake past that they programmed into her brain to make her believe that she was human. If that was true, then Boomer's death was no loss to us and it may have made the ship and crew safer. If Boomer had faced a tribunal, then she would have received the death sentence anyway. And Cally didn't do it strictly for herself. She did it for the Chief. She loves the man. That fact is very plain. And by virtue of his unwitting association with Boomer, his own humanity was called into question. He was suffering simply because he fell for the wrong woman. So another woman who loved him took action.

I guess what I'm taking a long time to say is that I can't condemn Cally for what she did. From a purely logical standpoint, I have to say it was wrong, but from my gut I applaud her. I can't deny that my own interest in revenge is coloring my judgment in this matter… and Cally shouldn't have taken justice into her own hands… but my own opinion is that it was justice in the end.


	19. Day 92

(Setting: Early in the events of "Flight of the Phoenix"  
Spoilers: Up through episode 2.09)

Day 92

03:00 hours. Reveille is just a few hours away and I can't sleep. I'm tired enough. I just can't seem to drift off. This has happened several times in the past few weeks actually. I don't know why. Nothing particularly eventful has happened lately. I don't feel any more stressed than usual. If anything, there's been a sense of normalcy growing on the ship.

Normalcy. What the hell does that mean these days? It means strict rations, double-long shifts, a constant state of high-readiness, and no end in sight. The fact that this is all considered status-quo is really wearing on people's nerves and the crew is starting to get punchy – literally. Kara actually assaulted Racetrack over a card game last week. Scuttlebutt has it that Racetrack made a snarky remark about Helo, and Kara took that as a declaration of war. Kara should have ended up in the brig, but Racetrack declined to press charges. I'm keeping an eye on those two now. I can't have two of my senior pilots acting up and setting a bad example for the nuggets, especially when one of them is the _flight instructor_.

I can't fault Kara for wanting to stick up for a friend, but assault and battery isn't going to inspire trust in the rest of the squadron on Helo's behalf. And I can't blame the rest of the pilots for being wary around him. He seems like a decent enough guy, who just happened to fall for the wrong girl. But the fact that he's still pursuing a relationship with Sharon, knowing full well that she's a Cylon, is a tough notion to accept. To his credit, he's been trying hard to fit in again since he got back, but it won't be easy, and in spite of her intentions Kara isn't helping on that issue. He'll have to prove himself, _by himself_. Helo's a big boy and he'll have to fight his own battles or nobody is going to respect him.

I was concerned at first about how the Chief was going handle having another Sharon on board. Rumor has it that he duked it out with Helo the same night that Kara and Racetrack mixed it up. They were definitely both sporting a nice collection of bruises the next day, but again nobody pressed charges. Since then though, the Chief has found a less-destructive outlet for his energies. He actually looked downright excited yesterday when he showed me his schematics (if they could be called that) for a new fighter plane and asked my approval to begin construction on the hanger deck. I don't expect this plane of his to actually fly, but if tinkering with this giant model gives him something else to look forward to… and so long as it doesn't interfere with his other duties… I might as well just let him have fun with his new toy. Who knows? Maybe the exercise will prove to be a learning experience that can benefit the whole deck crew.

The Chief isn't the only one looking to pursue a new hobby lately. That whole trend toward recreating a sense of normalcy is occurring throughout the crew. Several new group activities have been posted on the boards recently. I even agreed to help coach a self-defense class twice a week. I needed something different in my workout schedule to replace my sparring sessions with Dad. He's recovered well from his shooting, but he hasn't been too eager to strap on the boxing gloves yet. It's probably just as well for me. It took long enough for that last black eye to heal and Dee's right hook isn't quite as dangerous as his. Given a few more lessons though, I might have to start really looking out. She's a quick learner. And I have to say it's been nice spending a little more casual time with her, off-duty.

Kara actually suggested holding a pyramid tournament. I know she used to play back in college, but ever since she came back from Caprica her interest in the game has really been renewed. I think she might even be sleeping with that ball she brought back with her. She also put up quite a pout when I reminded her that we don't have a pyramid court on board Galactica, nor any room to build one. She suggested we could use the starboard flight deck, but there is no frakking way I'm going to persuade Colonel Tigh to allocate the man hours and resources that would be required to repair the "museum" window just to play pyramid.

Fun and games aside, nobody is forgetting that we're still at war and living under a constant threat of attack, in spite of the fact that there's been no sign of the Cylons for weeks. I should consider a lack of Cylon presence to be a good thing, shouldn't I? Somehow though, I just know it won't last. Maybe that's why I can't sleep. This lull in the action makes me think that they're just gearing up for something big and I'm just waiting for the hammer to drop. I haven't always been such a pessimist. I wish I could be more hopeful about our chances of finally escaping the Cylons. We do have a specific destination now, so we're no longer wandering aimlessly around uncharted space. That's a step forward, but my gut just tells me that the dark days are far from behind us. And my gut instincts have never been proven wrong yet.


	20. Day 100

(Setting: Near the end of events in "Flight of the Phoenix"  
Spoilers: through episode 2.09)

Day 100

Payback!

On one hand, I wish I could say that my instincts hadn't panned out. I knew that the Cylons hadn't left us alone and would show up sometime in full force. Today, I was proven right. I shouldn't be happy about that. I really shouldn't. I should be wishing that there was still no sign of the bastards and that the most exciting part of the day was indulging in the ongoing debate over whether or not Tyrol's hobby project will fly. But they did turn up today, and this time it was a chance for sweet retribution.

They've been biding their time, just like I suspected. They managed to get a virus into our computer systems several weeks ago and it's been hiding out ever since, learning our systems and preparing to take over the ship in coordination with an all-out attack. Lucky for us, the virus tipped its hand too soon. It tried to asphyxiate me, Kara, and Costanza on the shooting range this morning. Yeah, that doesn't sound very lucky, but if that hadn't happened, the virus wouldn't have been identified and we wouldn't have known what hit us until it was too late.

And… wow, this hurts to say… but I have to credit Sharon with saving us. As soon as we knew we were dealing with a Cylon virus, Helo took it to Sharon and she identified what it was doing, how soon it would activate, and she devised a solution. She somehow interfaced _herself_ into the mainframe and broadcast a virus back _at_ the attacking Cylon fleet. The Raiders outnumbered my Vipers by at least 10 to 1. If it had been a toe-to-toe battle with the Raiders, while Galactica was disabled by the virus… well, game over. Instead, Sharon's virus completely disabled the Raiders and it was open target practice. I have no idea how many Raiders I blew to hell today. I totally lost count somewhere after 15.

Way back when I first took over as CAG, I tried to sit down for a few minutes with each of my pilots and get to know them a little: their names, where they were from, their flight history. That kind of thing. Like me, "Crashdown" was a new arrival on Galactica. He was a refugee from the Columbia. He described to me how every Viper in his squadron suddenly just lost power and drifted straight into enemy fire at the battle over Virgon. Not a single Viper in that squadron got off a shot. Crash's Raptor was on the fringes of the combat zone; so when Columbia and Atlantia disintegrated and my father announced that he was taking command of the fleet, Crash was able to jump from Virgon to rendezvous with Galactica at the Ragnar Anchorage. He was the only survivor from the Columbia. He only lived another 6 weeks before dying as a hero in combat on the surface of Kobol, rest his soul. He was pretty green as an officer and I'm not sure that he would have ever been command material, but he was a good man and a dedicated team player. My most vivid memory of him is that first conversation we had when he described watching his shipmates get slaughtered without being able to put up a fight. I thought of Crash today when I saw the Cylons drifting out of control. I realized that we had the chance to give them a taste of their own medicine and I saw to it that one those toasters bought it in his name.

I'm really confused now over what to think about Sharon. She _is_ a Cylon. She was programmed to be exactly like Boomer. She actually "remembers" living here on Galatica and having an affair with the Chief even though it wasn't actually her. She and Boomer are essentially perfect copies of each other. Boomer was a saboteur and an assassin. I really don't want to trust her any farther than I can throw her. And yet, today she enabled us to wipe out the entire Cylon attack force, _unopposed_. It was a massacre. If she has truly defected and wants to lay in her lot with us, her actions today were a pretty strong showing of good faith on her part.

On the flip side… can you ever really trust a turncoat? She's a traitor to her people. Would I be able to trust a human who betrayed his colony and enabled his people to be massacred? No, I couldn't. There are plenty of examples through history, but none of them are figures worth admiring. And if you look at the motives of those people who have betrayed their own, they never do it for altruistic reasons. The motive is always personal: greed, vengeance, self-preservation. Sharon's motive appears to be focused around Helo. She loves him. She wants to be with him and raise their little hybrid family. So what happens if Helo gets tired of dating a girl in a cage and decides to get a little on the side? Even if Helo stays faithful, pilots do have a high mortality rate. Can we still trust Sharon if Helo isn't around?

Perhaps if Sharon seemed genuinely remorseful for the Holocaust, I could begin to have a little more trust in her. So far though, the slaughter of innocent trillions doesn't seem to bother her. She still displays the Cylon mentality that humans are inferior and as a race are disposable. At this point, I don't see that she has thrown in her lot with humanity – just with Helo. Today, she saved all of us, but that included her own life and her baby as well. By saving the rest of us, she also saved herself and her little family.

I would like to trust her. The information that she possesses could be invaluable to us. But even that isn't something that she volunteers. She answers questions that are put to her, but she doesn't offer anything without being asked. Maybe over time her motives won't prove to be totally self-serving, but until that happens… until she declares that the Holocaust was an unjustifiable abomination… I will remain glad that she's locked inside a cage while the rest of the ship celebrates today's victory in her absence.

The victory party is still in full swing over on the hanger deck. Dad and I mutually agreed to give our people this chance to cut loose for a little while. They all need it. And with every Cylon in this region reduced to rubble, we can all relax for a change. I'd still be over there with them if I didn't have an early morning staff meeting. I left my deputy to oversee the festivities. Although leaving Kara in charge of a party is a little like letting the inmates run the asylum, facing Colonel Tigh first thing in the morning with a hangover pounding in my skull is not the way I want to start a day. The CAG's work is never done. I still don't think we've escaped the Cylons permanently, but at least I can sleep well tonight.


End file.
